


Blood and Water

by Rheanna



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-31
Updated: 2000-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rheanna/pseuds/Rheanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When LA's vampires start falling prey to a mysterious plague, Cordelia's unsympathetic. Then Angel gets sick, and she and Wesley have to find a cure -- before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Water

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the first season finale, "To Shanshu in LA", but before the start of season two.

**Prologue**

  


**Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep**

_My first memory is of my mother, kneeling beside my bed, clutching her cross and her rosary and praying for me._

I remember being woken by the sound of her voice, soft and pleading. Her eyes were closed and she held the crucifix to her lips, as if to bless the words as soon as they left her mouth. I stared at her, seeing how the tears ran down her cheeks and fell from her jaw on to the white linen collar of her best Sunday dress. I had never seen her so upset before, and I wondered what I had done to make her cry.

I tried to reach out to her, but my arms were strangely heavy and wouldn't obey me. My skin burned; my head felt as if it had swollen to several times its normal size, and my ears were filled with the rushing of my blood, driven by a feverish fast pulse.

"Holy Mary, mother of God, please not my son. Please not my son. Holy mother, I entreat thee, thou art a mother as I am, and thou knowest the pain of losing a son. Please, holy mother, not my son."

I was no more than six or seven years old, but I understood. I heard the note of sorrow in my mother's voice, the anticipation of grief, and I knew I was going to die. I didn't mind. I was sleepy, and everything hurt. I didn't have enough of a past to regret, and the future was so vast, so blank a canvas, that I could not conceive enough of it to fear its loss. Sometimes I think if I had died then, I would have died content, and perhaps even found the loving arms of my mother's God, and known His son's forgiveness.

Too late for that now.

It feels like a long time ago, but it can't have been, because my mother is here again. She's beside me now, talking to me. Or maybe she's praying. Her voice is faint and growing fainter, and I can't make out the words. It doesn't matter. I've been playing out in the fields, Mother, under the sun, all day long. It's been a long, long day, and I'm tired now. I want to rest. I don't want to hear the blood in my head any more, singing to me.

Now I lay me down to sleep  
I give my soul to thee to keep  
And should I die before I wake  
I give my soul to thee to take

And should I die before I wake…

And should I die…

**1: Crossbearer**

"This is Dustbuster to Crossbearer, do you copy? Over."

The street in downtown LA's business district was wide, well lit by streetlamps and, at this time of night, almost completely empty. Nevertheless Gunn made his way to a pool of bright light under a neon shop sign before dropping his guard long enough to unhook the radio from his belt. Still keeping half an eye on his surroundings, he flipped it to 'send'. "This is Crossbearer, I copy. Over."

His deputy's voice was fuzzy with static- the radios weren't exactly top of the range or even, for that matter, legally obtained- but the words were sufficiently clear. "We lost him, but he's heading your way. It's weird. He's slow, like he's injured."

"I could take him, then."

He could hear the disapproval in her voice. "It could be a trap. False sense of security."

"They don't think like that. I'm on the corner of Grand Avenue and Second. How long for you to reach me?"

"Three minutes."

"Check. Don't worry, Cloud, I won't do anything reckless. Crossbearer out."

A police car was making its way along the boulevard. Gunn hooked the radio back on to his belt and adjusted his jacket, hiding the impressive array of weapons attached to the inner lining. The cop in the passenger seat glared at him on the way past. Gunn glared right back, almost able to hear his thoughts. Young African American male loitering on the streets in the early hours. What's he doing? Making trouble?

"Making the city a little safer," said Gunn quietly. "More than you're doing."

He heard a noise from behind him, and turned. An alleyway, unlit and narrow, led off the boulevard. With a single, easy movement Gunn stooped down and freed the sharpened stake nestling inside his boot. He straightened up, and listened.

A distant siren. The wind between the buildings. And then it came again…

He grinned. "Oh yeah. Come to Papa, baby. He's got a brand new stake for ya."

At the entrance to the alley, he paused long enough to shuffle the stake upwards between his fingers, so that the thick end brushed his wrist and the tip pricked his palm. Then he walked into the gloom, with slow and measured steps.

"Come on. I know y'all's in here."

The alley was silent. A faint rustling from behind the dumpster to his left made him look, but it was only a rat. Gunn walked on. He lifted his left arm, tilting up the heel of his hand and exposing the veins on his wrist to the night air. "I know you want some of this. It's good stuff. The very best. Packed full o'vitamins and…."

He heard the roar from behind a pile of discarded boxes and braced himself for the vampire's charge. "Come and get it!"

The vampire ran- no, wait, lurched- towards him and Gunn feinted to one side, avoiding its grasping arms with ease. He hopped backwards several paces, and waited for the counter attack. And waited some more.

The vampire stared at him, as if unable to decide whether pursuing its meal was worth the effort.

Gunn looked about, suddenly wondering if Cloud had been right. Dammit, what if this was a trap? He'd walked right into it and he only had himself to blame if…

The vampire fell over.

Gunn hesitated, then approached it and stood straddling its chest. The vampire groaned and made ineffectual attempts to wriggle out from under him.

"Hot damn," said Gunn wonderingly. He leaned down until he was nose to nose with the demon. "What is this? The least I expect is a fight. If you can't even be bothered putting in the effort, do you know what that does? I'll tell you what it does." He extended a finger and prodded the vampire's chest on every syllable, for emphasis. "It takes all. The. Fun. Out. Of. It. All the fun! And that just gets to me. It more than gets to me. It makes me angry. And tense. It makes me angry and tense and I stay angry and tense until I work that aggression right out." He dropped the stake down from his wrist to his palm, and in the same movement lifted his arm to shoulder level. Then he thrust the point down with all his strength, finding the soft flesh between the ribs with practiced certainty. The vampire gasped at the force of the blow, and shattered to powder.

Gunn sighed happily, and dusted himself down. "There. Inner serenity regained."

"Gunn? Everything okay?"

At the far end of the alley, Cloud and her team were heading towards him at a run. He waved at them. "I'm fine. All done here."

She skidded to a halt and nodded, taking in the dust and his bloodied stake. Her expression remained unsure. "We heard the fight…"

"It's sorted," he told her. "It was easy."

"Too easy," said Cloud. "That's four in one night. It's like they're… dead on their feet."

"They are dead on their feet." Gunn grinned at her and, when she didn't respond, tugged lightly at one of the long dark curls which had escaped from behind her ear. "Cloud, chill, okay? We're getting on top of our game. This is a good thing."

"It's a weird thing."

Gunn glanced back down the alley. A stray dog was sniffing disinterestedly around the spot where he had dusted the vampire. He would have preferred not to admit it, but Cloud had a point. To defeat an enemy, you had to understand it completely. Anticipate it. If the vamps were capable of surprising him, of behaving in unexpected ways- even getting unexpectedly killed- that meant he didn't understand them. He didn't like that possibility one little bit.

"Gunn?"

"Yeah. Just thinkin'." He shook his head, and lifted his radio. "Stakeholder, this is Crossbearer. Theo, are you out there, man?"

"Stakeholder. Yeah, Gunn, we're good here."

"How many you get tonight?"

"Oh, man!" Even through the radio's hiss, the excitement in Theo's voice was evident. "We dusted like five or six. We're talking world record territory here!"

Despite himself, Gunn smiled. "I'll call the Guinness Book of Records in the morning. Listen, I want you to round up your team and meet us back at base."

"No problemo. Be there inside the hour. Stakeholder out."

The radio went dead, and Gunn looked up to find Cloud watching him curiously. "We done for tonight?"

Gunn grinned. "Sister, we are just getting started."

**2: Hello, Lover**

"Okay, I'm coming out now. Are you ready?"

Angel looked up from the book he was reading and frowned at the empty room. "Ready for what?"

"Ready for the full-on, no-holds-barred, man-catching phenomenon that is Cordelia Chase. Taaa-daaa!" With a flourish, Cordelia stepped out from behind the partition into the apartment's hallway, performing a graceful spin on her way to the centre of the lounge. A semi-transparent stole was draped over her shoulders, its tasselled edges brushing the hems of the bright red dress which covered her chest and thighs and little else. "What do you think?"

Angel searched for the right words, and failed to find them: "I think it's…very nice."

Cordelia gave a derisory tut. "I know it's nice, I want to know if it's jaw-dropping, two hundred dollars' worth of spectacular."

Angel wondered how it was possible to pay so much for so little fabric. "How much?"

"Don't worry, my bonus will cover it."

"What bonus?"

Cordelia waved a hand dismissively and went into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and pouring herself a glass of mineral water. "Dennis, have you seen my earrings? The little silver drops?" Angel watched as a tiny pair of metallic objects levitated out of a bowl of trinkets on the end of a bookshelf and floated purposefully into the kitchen, depositing themselves into Cordelia's waiting palm. "Thank you, Dennis." Finishing her water, she returned to the living room, hooking each one into place in turn. "C'mon, Angel. Remember that whole 'honesty and tact' talk we had after the Rebecca Lowell thing? Well, I'm going out on a first date and I'd value the honest and tactful opinion of someone whose views I respect. So hit me."

Angel closed his book and leaned forward slightly. "It's nice," he said. "Really."

"And…?" prompted Cordelia.

"And, ah, well, don't you think you might be a little cold in that?"

"Oh my God, you think I look like a slut." Cordelia spun on her heel and strode towards her bedroom, just as the front doorbell began to chime. "A cheap whore! A call girl! I have to change. Get that."

Angel looked from Cordelia's retreating and entirely exposed back to the apartment's front door. He sighed and tried to remember when and why staying with Cordelia had seemed like a workable solution to his current lack of accommodation. He put down the book and, stepping carefully around the boxes of possessions and equipment salvaged from the wreckage of the office, he opened the door.

"You're here," said Wesley. "Good. I need to speak with you on a matter of prime urgency."

Angel stood back from the door and allowed Wesley to enter. "Just so long as you don't want my opinion on what you're wearing."

"Pardon me?"

"Never mind. What's up?"

Wesley was already sitting at the table, lifting a cardboard tube from his backpack. He removed one end and carefully slid out an ancient, yellowing parchment, which he unrolled slowly, working it flat with his fingertips. "I've been making a complete translation of the prophecies of Aberjian. Everything leading up to the… well, the shanshu thing. I've been concentrating particularly on attempting to work out the timings of the events foretold."

Angel sat down opposite him and held down the corners of the scroll. "Is that possible? Most prophecies don't come with a handy fold-out calendar."

Wesley pored over a section of the manuscript, apparently searching for a particular reference. "It's not exactly a science, but if one knows what to look for, it's possible to make reasonably safe guesses. Now, what I've found which is interesting is this…"

"Oh, Wesley, it's you." Cordelia sounded disappointed. "I thought you were my date."

Angel looked around and saw Cordelia had changed into a full-length black silk dress with lace detail on the sleeves. Beside him, Wesley cleared his throat. "Cordelia. You look stunning. I mean… well, stunning. Oh my."

Cordelia smiled sweetly at Angel. "You see? That's the reaction I was looking for." She saw the scroll on the table and scowled. "No, no prophecies, thank you. This is my night off and I emphatically do not want to know about demons, ghouls or the coming apocalypse."

"I think I've found something very important in the manuscript," protested Wesley.

"Does it prophesy that the world is going to end before dawn tomorrow?"

"No, but…"

"Then I can still go out on my date and I'm not interested." The doorbell rang, and Cordelia made a dash back in the direction of the bathroom. "That's my date. I'm not ready. Be nice. Talk to him."

Wesley looked at Angel curiously. "Her date?"

"They met when she drove through a red light and rear-ended him. Fortunately, he works in motor insurance."

"Only Cordelia could turn a road accident into an invitation to dinner." The doorbell rang again. "Ahh, perhaps you should…?"

Angel got up, motioning to Wesley to put the scroll away. He opened the door to a surprised-looking blonde man wearing a well cut double breasted suit. "Oh. Hi. Have I got the right address? I'm looking for Cordelia Chase."

"Yes, you've the right place. She's not ready just yet." Angel stood aside, allowing Cordelia's date to enter but not explicitly inviting him in. He crossed the threshold of the apartment, unaware he had just passed the first test, and Angel closed the door behind him.

The man smiled pleasantly, and held out a hand to be shaken. Angel pretended not to notice, and after an awkward few seconds he withdrew it and acted as if he had intended to jangle his keys in his pocket all along. "I'm Todd. Todd Kinney. And one of you must be Dennis, right?"

At the table, Wesley was carefully rolling up the scroll. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm just passing through."

Todd looked at Angel. "So you're…"

"A houseguest," Angel told him. "There was a fire at my place. I'm staying here until it gets fixed up."

Todd sat down on the couch and nodded sympathetically. "A fire. Man, that sucks. How'd it start?"

"Gas leak," said Wesley.

"Bad wiring," said Angel, at the same time. "The gas leak was caused by bad wiring," he amended, then wished he hadn't.

"Riiight," said Todd, slowly. He had noticed the engraved broadsword leaning against the coat rack, and for a moment he stared at it nervously. "So is Dennis around?" he asked, looking back at the table and Wesley.

Behind Todd, the broadsword levitated until it hung suspended in mid-air. Then it gracefully travelled across the hall and through the doorway leading to the den, safely out of sight. "He's floating about here somewhere," said Wesley.

Angel felt a change of conversational tack was required. "So, where are you two going tonight?"

Todd looked round at Angel as Wesley got up and casually dropped his jacket over the gold-handled ceremonial dagger jutting out very noticeably from one of the boxes on the floor. "There's a new restaurant in Bunker Hill I thought we'd try. La Boheme. You know it?"

"I don't eat out a lot. How are you getting there?"

"I'm driving."

"Will you be late?" asked Wesley.

"Well, I guess, ahh, that depends on-"

"The city isn't safe at night. If anything happens, you can phone here. We'll come."

Angel thought of something. "Did Cordelia mention her migraines?"

Todd blinked. "Migraines? I don't think that, umm…"

"Because she gets these migraines. They come on very suddenly. If she's standing up, you have to make sure she doesn't fall and hurt herself."

"That's cool, man, I can deal with…"

"She was hospitalised last month, because of the migraines," said Wesley. "She's still a little fragile."

"Hospitalised? She never mentioned…"

"What are these guys telling you about me?" Cordelia swept into the lounge, carrying a black clutch bag and tucking the last errant strands of hair behind her ears.

Todd stood up and offered her his arm. "That you look fantastic."

Cordelia smiled as she accepted it, and allowed herself to be piloted towards the door, shooting Angel a look which clearly said that everyone else was more than capable of complimenting her appropriately.

"Have you got your…?" Angel curled his free hand into a fist and mimed a staking motion.

"Like I'd go anywhere without one. Have an exciting night reading old books, guys, as I know only you two can. Don't wait up."

"I don't trust him," said Wesley when they had gone. "He had the look."

"The look?"

"You know. The look. The *look*."

"Wesley, what did you want to tell me about the prophecies?"

Wesley was still staring at the door. "Hmmm? Oh, right. The prophecies." He unfurled the manuscript again and indicated a portion of text buried within an intricate pattern of symbolic illustration. "You recall that I said that it appeared as if, before the shanshu prophecy came about, a number of other things had to happen first? Fiends, apocalyptic battles, plagues?"

"I remember."

"Well this, as far as I can tell, is event number one. And it's due to happen right about now."

"What is it?"

Wesley traced the lines of text as he translated them, his finger hovering just above the fragile vellum. "It says, 'And a plague of demon-possessed blood-drinkers shall come upon the city of angels, and there shall be death in the streets, and unto those who live also.'"

"Vampires."

"It looks very much like it," agreed Wesley.

Angel pushed his chair away from the table and leaned backwards, looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Maybe the prophecy's telling us something we already know."

"How do you mean?"

Angel shrugged. "There's a lot of demonic activity in L.A. A lot. It's almost as intense as Sunnydale, and I thought it was exceptional because of the Hellmouth. I spent eighty years in this country and hardly met another vampire. So maybe L.A. is already suffering a plague."

Wesley nodded. "I hadn't considered that. If you're correct, it means we're one step closer to the fulfilment of the final prophecy than we thought we were." He grinned, and Angel realised Wesley was genuinely excited on his behalf. The doorbell rang.  
"And on the subject of prophecies, I predict that's Cordelia and that she's gone out without her keys, again."

"Maybe it is closer," said Angel, going to the door, "but I'm still going to pass on that champagne." He opened it. "What have you forgotten?"

"Lemme think," said Gunn: "Stake, garlic… nope, I ain't forgotten nothin'. You busy fighting evil tonight, man? 'Cos if you ain't got no other plans, there's something I want you to see."

**3: A Night at the Opera**

"There is nothing so civilised as opera. The disparate elements - words, music, movement - work together to serve a higher harmony. Executed well, it is magnificent. Are you a fan of opera, Mr McDonald?"

Lindsey looked down from the box where he sat to the stage below, where Mozart's Don Giovanni was reaching its conclusion. At least, Lindsey hoped it was reaching a conclusion. He didn't think he could face another hour of people in period costume singing at each other.

But his prospective client loved opera, and that was reason enough to endure it. "I'm gaining an appreciation," he said over the swell of the orchestra below. "And please, Mr Favard, call me Lindsey."

"Then you must call me Francis." The silver-haired man seated in the box beside Lindsey smiled warmly, revealing a gracefully tapered pair of canines on either side of his overbite. Lindsey had been told that as vampires aged, they found it increasingly difficult to hide their true demonic natures. He also knew a vampire had to be extremely ancient before that became a problem. "It's good of you to accompany me. I find I rarely get the opportunity to share my passions."

Lindsey smiled back, sensing the moment was right to start making his pitch. "At Wolfram and Hart, Francis, we believe in getting to know our clients. It allows us to serve their specialised needs more effectively."

Favard held up one claw-like finger. "Wait. Listen to the phrasing…" He shut his eyes and moved his hand slowly through the air, following the tempo of the music and voices rising from below. "Isn't it exquisite? I was in the audience, you know, the first time this was performed. Mozart was there." He shook his head. "A genius, of course, but no ability to plan. Did you know he wrote the overture to Don Giovanni the night before the premier? I saw him, just before the curtain rose, handing out the sheet music to the orchestra The ink was still wet." He dropped his hand and broke his reverie. "Forgive me. You don't want to hear endless historical anecdotes, I'm sure."

"Actually, I find talking to our clients fascinating. I had a college professor who used to talk about living history. I never guessed I'd get a chance to meet it."

Favard chuckled. "Or unliving history."

Lindsey laughed. This was going well. Share a joke with the prospect, show him you're on his side. Wolfram and Hart: professional, discreet, flexible, accommodating. Above all, accommodating. "Would you like a drink?"

Favard raised an eyebrow. "Here?"

"Absolutely." Lindsey reached into the pocket of his jacket, hanging over the back of his chair, and found the leather hip-flask in the pocket. He had deliberately selected a design which included a small handle, a enclosed loop of twisted silver. He steadied the bottle by slipping the appendage that had replaced his missing right hand through the loop, then he unscrewed the lid with his left hand using short, sharp movements. The operation lacked a certain grace, but it was effective, and for the moment that was all Lindsey required. Holland had assured him that it would be possible to do something about his missing right hand, but the magic involved was proving trickier to master than they had anticipated. In the meantime, the temporary substitute Lindsey had been given was good for frightening children and not much else.

At last the lid came free, and he handed the flask to Favard. "It's not warm, but it is fresh." The vampire drank appreciatively, even greedily, and Lindsey watched with satisfaction tinged with an edge of disgust he could not quite ignore. "You were talking about the importance of good planning."

Favard drained the last of the flask's contents, and laughed quietly. "Indeed. Which brings us to the matter at hand very neatly. I have… certain plans, Lindsey. The details need not concern us here. However, the resources I need to carry out those plans…"

He let the sentence hang unfinished between them. Lindsey leaned forward and carefully lowered his voice. "My firm provides an extremely wide range of specialised professional services. Most of which are not available anywhere else."

"What I have in mind most certainly is not." Favard paused. "I wish to employ the Principalities."

Lindsey blinked, and tried not to let any trace of his growing excitement show in his face or voice. Already he could hardly wait to break this one to the office at large - summoning and binding the Principalities was major league. And the client was his. Neutrally, he said, "Francis, I'll be honest with you. I'm just a guy in a suit - I leave the technical stuff to our backroom boys. But I've heard them talk, and I know the Principalities are about as tough an order as you can get. Those things don't like being dragged up here and they sure as hell don't like taking orders." He half-smiled: "No pun intended."

Favard looked at him levelly. "So the task is beyond your firm?"

Lindsey held up his left hand. "I didn't say that. I'm being straight with you here, Francis - no lawyer bull. If you want the Principalities, you can have them. But it won't be cheap."

Favard appeared to relax. He nodded. "I can pay the price. I have tried elsewhere and been disappointed. I simply wanted assurance that I was approaching the right people. And now I see I am."

"Wolfram and Hart is unique, Francis. No one else out there does what we do." Lindsey smiled broadly. He could tell Favard was going to be a dream client: he had already more or less agreed to pay whatever fee Lindsey chose to make for the contract. And then there was the junior partner's new client bonus…

"I am beginning to suspect that." Favard made as if to say something else, and broke off. His face shifted back to its human countenance, and he winced. "Indigestion," he said apologetically. "A symptom of age I thought I had left behind."

"Can I get you something for it?"

"No," said Favard. "A moment, and I will be… I will be…" Without warning, he doubled over and retched violently. Blood poured on to the pale cream carpet covering the floor of the box. The man and woman in the next box looked around. Lindsey ignored them, and placed his left hand on Favard's hunched back.

"Francis? Mr Favard?"

The opera was reaching its climax below, as the statue of the Commendatore arrived at the finale banquet and demanded Don Giovanni's repentance for his crimes.

"Mr Favard," said Lindsey: "I'll bring the car around to the front of the theatre."

Favard was still retching and couldn't reply. Lindsey stood up and found his keys. He turned to go, and almost walked into the uniformed usher standing in the box's door.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but a couple of people have asked if you could refrain from talking during the…" The man faltered as he registered what was happening to Favard. "My God. Sir, are you all right?"

"He's fine," said Lindsey, positioning himself between the usher and Favard. "He just doesn't feel well. We're leaving now."

"He's vomiting." The usher's voice began to rise. "Oh my God, that's blood. I'll call an ambulance."

"Listen to me. That is not necessary." Lindsey spoke as firmly and confidently as he could. He glanced to either side and saw that all the occupants of the nearby boxes, and a few audience members in the stalls, were now more interested in his drama than the one on the stage.

"Sir, I'm calling an ambulance now."

"I said that's not…"

Behind Lindsey, Favard attempted to stand up, but doubled over in pain again, leaving him bending over the front of the box. Lindsey heard the ugly sound of retching again, followed closely by several screams from the ground floor.

On the stage, Don Giovanni was being pulled down into hell, unrepentant and damned.

Lindsey grabbed Favard by the back of his jacket and hauled him unceremoniously back into the box, where he collapsed on to the ruined carpet, clutching his stomach and moaning. When Lindsey looked back to the box's entrance, the usher had already gone. He guessed he had maybe five minutes before the ambulance arrived. Not long enough to get an incapacitated vampire out of the building.

With no alternative course open to him, Lindsey sat down next to Favard's semi-conscious, twitching body, and waited.

**4: Cordelia the Vampire Slayer**

"So, are you from L.A.?"

"Hmmm?" Cordelia ran her finger down La Boheme's dessert menu, hovering uncertainly over the chocolate cheesecake. She'd just eaten the best meal she'd had in months and, even better, Todd had hinted more than once that he felt going Dutch was inappropriate on a first date. But did ordering dessert send out I'm-a-potential-binge-eater signals? "Oh, no. I just moved here this year. I'm from a little town up north: Sunnydale. That's where I know Angel and Wesley from - we had mutual friends at my high school. Anyhow, I graduated and when I came to L.A. I ran into Angel. He'd just set up the business here and, really, he's terrific but he has no idea about filing. So I offered to help him out until my acting career got off the ground."

"So what do you do?"

Maybe she could compromise and order the lemon mousse. How many calories could there be in something that was ninety percent air? "Oh, everything. Straight drama, comedy, and I'm going to learn to dance so I can audition for the musicals."

Todd smiled. "I meant, what's Angel's business and what do you do in it?"

Cordelia leaned forward, over the menu. Lowering her voice, she said, "He's a private detective. Isn't that glamorous? Wesley does the research and I do… well, I do a little of everything. Office management, client relations, marketing…" She smiled brightly. "And on evenings I battle the forces of darkness."

Todd looked at her for a second, then laughed. "You should try out for more comedies. You're a natural."

Damn, he was cute when he was laughing, thought Cordelia. And he definitely had a reflection - she'd checked for that when he'd ordered aperitifs at the bar- and so far he had shown absolutely no inclination towards attempting to impregnate her with his demon offspring. Cordelia wasn't sure if her dating standards had dropped lately, but she was willing to concede that on past experience those were all major goods. "Angel thinks so too. I crack him up."

"Really? He struck me as being the serious type."

"Oh, he is. But I crack him up in a dark-and-broody on the outside, giggling-hysterically on the inside kind of way." Cordelia handed her open menu to the waiter who was hovering with intent next to the table. "Trio of sorbets, please."

"I'll have the chocolate cheesecake," said Todd, handing over his menu. He looked back at Cordelia. "You must get on well. I can't imagine letting my boss move in with me. Even temporarily."

"Well, he was going to find a motel, but the insurance company hasn't paid up for the office yet, and with the business on hold we're a little tight on cashflow right now. Besides, Angel has this whole dietary thing…" Cordelia waved a hand and trailed off. "But you really don't want to hear about that."

"He certainly seems fond of you. He made sure he told me exactly how to look after you before we left this evening."

"He did? That's…" Cordelia smiled. "That's nice. I'm getting fond of him. And Wesley. I don't have any family in L.A. and they're sweet."

The desserts arrived, and Todd began to attack his slab of cheesecake with gusto. "Yeah. And they make a nice couple."

"No," began Cordelia, and stopped, suddenly wondering if insisting to her date that the man currently sharing her apartment was not gay was the best way to take the evening forward. "No," she amended quickly: "They're like, the cutest couple ever, aren't they? Wesley's a doll. Hey, are you eating the rest of that cheesecake?"

A sudden noise from the front of the restaurant made Cordelia turn in her seat. The source of the commotion seemed to be an argument between the Maitre D' and a bum who had wandered in off the street. The bum was lurching drunkenly from side to side while the head waiter attempted to usher him back into the street with a gradually increasing level of force. Todd set down his fork. "Maybe I should go help out."

Cordelia stared at the mirror behind the bar, where the reflections of the Maitre D' and the waiters struggled silently against empty air. "No. Don't."

"It's okay, Cordelia. It'll only take a second." Todd stood up.

The vampire growled, and knocked one of the waiters sideways into the bar's metal counter. It shuffled towards the man, slow and unsteady on its feet. Cordelia stared. This wasn't right. This was something new.

The vampire bore down on the waiter, pinning him to the counter. Several members of the restaurant's staff had now joined the fray, as well as a few of the closer diners, but it was clear that they were only slowing the vampire down. Cordelia was sure none of them knew what they were dealing with, or how to stop it.

She opened her purse and pulled out a stake. "Vampire Zombies from Beyond the Hellmouth," she said to herself: "Starring Cordelia Chase."

Todd was staring at her incredulously. "Cordelia, what are you doing? That's a piece of wood, not a…"

"Todd," she said clearly: "Sit. Watch. Learn."

Gripping the stake so tightly she could feel splinters piercing the palm of her hand, she walked through the tables and across the main entrance of the restaurant. The vampire, grappling with five waiters and customers, as well as its intended victim, was still hunched towards the bar, and took no notice of her as she approached. She took up a position directly behind it, and tapped its shoulder sharply.

The vampire broke free from its attackers and spun around to face her, hissing. One of the waiters gave a short yelp of surprise and fear at the sight of the demon's face. As well as the animalistic, heavy features Cordelia expected, the vampire's skin was mottled with a dark red rash and its eyes were feverishly shiny.

"Excuse me," she said, "but if you don't mind, I'm on a date here."

She plunged the stake into the space between the vampire's ribs, and brushed the resulting dust carefully off the front of her dress. Then she turned and made her way back to her table, remarking to the room in general as she went, "Jeez. The way Buffy acts you'd think it was tough or something."

**5: A Vampire in the Basement, and Other Errors of Feng Shui**

"Stop here," said Gunn, indicating a place at the side of the empty street. "We'll walk the last few blocks."

Angel pulled the convertible off the road and killed the engine. Gunn hopped over the still-closed door, while Wesley got out in the traditional manner. They began to make their way along the unfamiliar back alleys. "You've moved your base," Angel observed.

Gunn shrugged. "Had to. They knew where we were."

"Speaking of which," said Wesley, "How did you know where Cordelia lives?"

Gunn nodded in Angel's direction. "From him."

"Angel?"

"When you and Cordelia were in hospital, I asked Gunn's people to watch out for you. They covered your apartments, too, until you came out."

"Well, I…" Wesley blinked. "Thank you."

"Ain't no damn vamp going to get past us," said Gunn resolutely. He shot Angel a look. "Nothing personal. We're here." He pushed aside a dumpster to reveal a set of steps and, at their base, a scarred wooden door. He rapped it quickly, four quick knocks, three slow. After a moment, it opened. "Chain, it's me. I got two with me." He glanced back at Angel: "And you can consider yourself invited in."

The door opened fully, and they ducked inside. The passageway was low, and Angel had to stoop to make his way along it. They descended twice more, once by stairs and finally by a rusty iron ladder whose every rung creaked ominously at the imposition of weight. Jumping the last few feet on to the concrete floor, Angel found himself in a long, low hall, whose walls were defaced by ancient graffiti and moss-green streaks of damp. He made to step forward, and caught himself just before his toe made contact with the nearly-invisible wire thread strung across the hall. Tracking the faint glimmer to its source, he saw a loaded crossbow mounted at chest level on the far wall.

"Love what you've done with the place," murmured Wesley. "It's so homely."

Gunn scowled at him. "Yeah, well, the guide to Feng Shui didn't offer much about positioning booby traps. You got a nice apartment somewhere, yeah? This is my home, man, and I mean to make it safe." He hopped over the tripwire. "Now follow me."

Hopping, side-stepping and ducking where indicated, they traversed the length of the hall without incident. At the opposite end of the entrance hall, a petite black girl dressed in torn combats and a crop top waited for them. "I'm glad you're back," she said to Gunn. "I don't like having one of them here. It's giving me the creeps."

"Not for much longer. I brought the experts." Gunn pointed at them in turn: "Cloud, this is Angel and Wes."

"Ah, that would be Wesley. Two syllables: Wes-ley."

Cloud eyed Angel with suspicion. "I don't like having two of them here," she amended.

"Stow it," said Gunn sharply. "He's cool."

Angel said, "You still haven't told us what this is about."

"I'm gettin' there." Gunn crossed the room until he was standing next to a crate-shaped object draped in an expanse of stained red velvet. Angel began to move closer, but halted at the sight of Gunn's hand raised in warning. "Better stay where you are. This might be catching."

Angel opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but before he could say anything, Gunn had gripped one corner of the material and given it a sharp tug. It fell to the floor, revealing the cage beneath.

The vampire within lay on its side, twitching but apparently oblivious to its surroundings. It was positioned with one hand extended, claw-like, into the pool of clotting blood on the floor by its head.

Even from across the room, Angel could smell it. The vomited blood had an odour that was new to him - not fresh, not stale, but cloying, at once sweet and acidic. He could tall from the expressions on the faces of the three humans that they found the smell distasteful, but to Angel it was almost overpoweringly strong. He turned away.

Cloud looked at him sceptically. "Don't tell me blood bothers you."

"Not usually." He made himself turn back to the cage. "Vampires aren't known for throwing up."

"And seeing that, aren't we grateful for it." Wesley glanced over his shoulder at Angel, then at the cage in front of him, with an expression of keen interest. "Mind if I take a closer look?"

Gunn shrugged. "Be my guest. Far as I can figure, the only reason to steer clear is if you're a vamp."

Wesley was kneeling by the cage now, moving his hand back and forth through the vampire's line of sight, apparently trying to determine if it was conscious. "So you think this is some sort of disease."

Gunn gave Angel a sceptical look. "This is the brains of your outfit?"

Angel said nothing, and Wesley pointedly ignored the remark. "It's understandable that an uninformed amateur might conclude this creature is ill, but that's quite impossible. There are no vampire diseases."

"You sure 'bout that?" asked Gunn. "'Cos there are one hell of a lot of sick vamps out there."

Angel turned to him. "You've seen others?"

It was Cloud who answered. "More than a few. It started three or four nights ago, mostly in the downtown neighbourhoods, but they're all over now."

"Not that we're complaining," added Gunn: "It's just… well, I don't like it when vamps do unexpected things. And this is one big stinkin' heap of unexpected."

"Angel, come and look at this."

Angel began again to approach the cage. Gunn stepped in front of him. "Man, I really wouldn't."

"It's okay. Wesley's right - there are no vampire diseases. Whatever's wrong with that one, it's not communicable."

Gunn reluctantly moved aside, and Angel joined Wesley, crouching on the floor as close to the bars as possible. "What is it?"

"I need your night vision. Tell me if I'm seeing things, or is that mottling on the skin really there?"

Angel looked at the vampire's exposed face, neck and hands, seeing the livid pattern of bruising on the skin clearly despite the gloom. "It's there. It's like a rash. I've never seen anything like that before."

"And I certainly don't recall reading about these… I suppose I shall have to say 'symptoms', for lack of a better term."

Inside the cage, the vampire suddenly began to stir. Rolling over on to its stomach, and propping itself up on its hands and knees, it lunged towards them with a roar, before hitting the bars and rebounding with a heavy thud on to the floor. It moaned, retched, and threw up once more before a crossbow bolt to its chest dusted it permanently.

Wesley looked at the empty cage, then at Gunn, who was still holding the crossbow raised, and said in annoyance: "I'd barely started examining it."

Gunn shrugged. "This operation does not have a policy of taking prisoners. I brought you here so you could see it. You saw. You want to study one up close, go catch your own." He looked at Angel. "Maybe you're right and there's no such thing as vamp 'flu, but I don't think you oughtta be taking chances."

The pile of dust in the centre of the cage slowly soaked up the pool of blood. Angel watched the grey ashes turn red, then black, before subsiding into a sodden, bloody mess. "Thanks for the concern, but this could be anything. Poison, for a start."

"A person'd need one mighty load of rat poison to do the amount of damage I'm seeing out there," said Gunn, replacing the crossbow on a hook set into the wall. "Look, dead vamps is not a problem for me. But if something's going down on my patch, I like to know why. And if someone's doing this, I'm thinking that's someone I want on our side."

A ringing sound distracted Angel from the discussion and he searched the pockets of his coat until he located his cell phone. "Hello?"

"So you finally remembered to bring your phone when you go out. Wesley's is switched off. He is such a dolt."

"Cordelia?" Angel looked at his watch. "Is your date over already?"

"Yes, my date is over. My date is so totally over it's not true. He ditched me, Angel! Can you believe that?"

"I, uhh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Not nearly as sorry as I am. It was going so well, and the meal was so nice, and we were hitting it off, and he was going to pay and everything and then I went back to our table and he'd just gone without even saying anything and I *hate* this stupid city and I *hate* that my dates are all psychos…"

"Is Cordelia in trouble?" asked Wesley.

Angel attempted to tune out the muted stream of self-pity churning in his ear long enough to frame an answer. He covered the base of the phone with his hand. "No. Her date bombed."

"Why's she telling you?"

Angel gave him a look. "Because your phone was turned off."

Wesley clapped him supportively on the shoulder. "Say something sympathetic," he suggested, and turned back to Gunn and Cloud.

"…And it was all because of that stupid sick vampire," continued Cordelia. "I knew I should have worn the red dress."

"Cordelia, stop. What sick vampire?"

"The sick vampire I staked in the restaurant. Did I not mention that?"

"Where are you now?"

"Walking down Broadway, trying to flag down a taxi. Which is impossible, it turns out. I shouldn't have let him drive."

"Stay where you are. I'll come and pick you up. Give me half an hour." He ended the call and turned to the others. "I'm going to get Cordelia. Wesley, if I leave you off on the way, could you do some research on this?"

"I'm not sure I'll be able to find much, but I'll certainly look."

To Gunn, Angel said: "If you come across any more like this, you should stake them from a distance. Just in case."

Gunn grinned at him. "Don't worry. I wasn't gonna offer them hot lemon and honey."

**6: It's a Vision Thing**

"Tell me again what it looked like."

"It looked icky. Icky covers it. Do I have to go into details?"

A set of traffic lights hanging above the road ahead flicked from amber to red, and Angel brought the black Plymouth convertible to a stop beneath them. Hip-hop blared from the car in the adjacent lane, and one of its drunken occupants leaned out, leering obviously at Cordelia. She ignored him, too wrapped up in her own despondency to notice. "It could be important," Angel told her. "Gunn's group have been finding sick vampires for the last few nights. There's something strange going on."

Cordelia thought. "Well, he looked kind of feverish - not that I stopped to take his temperature or anything. And he wasn't acting rationally. I mean, he walked straight into the restaurant and tried to serve himself from the people-buffet. Not smart. Oh, and there was this really gross purple rash all over his face."

The lights turned green, and Angel accelerated the car. "Yeah. We saw that too. It is the same thing."

Cordelia brightened. "But I staked him good. Straight for the heart, and *poof*, all gone." She frowned. "And then I got back to my table and Todd had bailed. I guess he couldn't handle the whole slaying thing. You know, I'm beginning to understand why Buffy can't hold down a stable relationship. So where are we going?"

Angel took a left and turned off the boulevard, on to one of the quieter side streets. "I'll leave you home. Then I thought I might drop by Wesley's and see if he's turned up anything useful."

"Do you want help?"

"No, it's okay. It is your night off."

"Good," said Cordelia firmly, "because I wasn't offering. Angel, let me sum up my understanding of the situation. Number one, a lot of nasty, blood-sucking vampires are sick. Well, so what? Since when do we run the Undead Red Cross? Number two, and this is the really crucial point, no one is going to pay us for doing this. Jeez, anyone would think you're not in business to make money."

"I'm not."

Cordelia settled back in the convertible's front passenger seat and gave the long, resigned sigh of imminent martyrdom. "You might as well get Wesley and let him bring his books back to mine. Most of your library is there anyhow."

Angel looked at her. "You don't have to…"

"I know. But it's either that or watch late night movies and feel even more depressed than I already do about how my date ditched me. Did I mention my date ditched me?"

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You said that already."

"You told me Todd ditched you already," Angel pointed out.

Cordelia frowned in mock petulance. "I need consoling, and you're not even trying."

"I am trying," he protested. "It's just that I don't have a lot experience with this kind of thing. 'I'm sorry to hear that' pretty much exhausts my repertoire."

Cordelia giggled. "Didn't you ever have a teenage sister, way back in ye olden days?"

Angel looked at the road ahead. "I had a sister."

"Oh," said Cordelia quietly. "Oh. Oh! Ohhhh…"

"Cordelia?"

There was no reply, and when he looked to his right, he saw that she was curled up in the passenger's seat, her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them in as close an approximation of the foetal position as the confines of the car allowed. Her face was contorted in pain. Angel pulled the convertible off the road and released Cordelia's seat-belt. He took her hand and gripped it tightly. "It's all right. It'll be over soon. I'm here."

He spoke to her quietly, unsure if she heard but somehow feeling the need to let her know she was not alone. When the vision passed, Cordelia blinked twice and stretched her legs and arms. Angel noticed a row of tiny punctures on each of her shins, where her nails had broken the flesh. "Oh, God."

"It's all right. It's over now."

She swallowed, and nodded. "I was… uhh, it was a little girl. Her name is Lauren Tanner. She's sick; she's in a hospital."

"Do you know which one?"

"Yes. St Matthew's. I think I'll know where in the hospital when we get there."

Angel pulled the car back out into the traffic and made a U-turn, accepting the change of destination implicit in her statement.

"Angel, she's only eight years old, and she thinks she's going to die."

He touched her hand. "You wouldn't have been given the vision if we couldn't change it."

Cordelia nodded, and allowed her head to sag against the back of the passenger seat. "I could hear you," she said. "It was like you were a long way off, but I heard. I don't think I could stand these if I had to go through them by myself."

Angel squeezed her hand more tightly, and drove faster.

**7: Visiting Hour**

By the time they had arrived St Matthew's and found a space in the hospital's overcrowded short-stay parking lot, Cordelia's headache was beginning to fade, although the metallic taste at the back of her mouth and the odd sense of mental dislocation which always accompanied the visions persisted. She had forgotten to bring painkillers with her, so she had to make do with chewing a stick of mint gum, while sipping from the bottle of tepid mineral water someone had left in the Plymouth's glove compartment. She felt relief when the car's motion finally stopped.

"We're here," said Angel. "Do you want to wait in the car while I go in?"

She opened her eyes and looked towards the lights of the hospital's main entrance. "No, I'll come with you. Tonight's been so much fun so far, why stop now?"

She got out of the car and waited while he locked it, then went into the hospital building. The E.R reception was crammed, mainly with mugging victims and weekend drinkers. Angel surveyed the mass of humanity, and looked back to her. "Where now?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure."

"Well, we've got a name. I'll ask at the desk here, then the ICU. If that comes up blank, we'll find out where paediatrics is." He frowned. "You look pale, Cordelia. Maybe you should sit here until I get back."

That was peachy, coming from someone who hadn't had a healthy complexion since the eighteenth century, but for once Cordelia didn't voice the thought. The harsh buzzing voices and fluorescent lights were aggravating her headache again, so she simply nodded and slipped into a moulded plastic seat at the back of the waiting area. She watched Angel disappear into the tangle of bodies crowded around the reception desk, then rubbed her aching eyes. She looked up at the ceiling and announced, "I hate this gig. You hear that, Powers-That-Be? It sucks."

The veiny-nosed drunk in the seat beside her squeezed her elbow in a show of inebriated solidarity. "They never listen to me either, honey."

"Get off me!" She swatted his arm away and got up quickly. As she looked around for somewhere else to sit, her eye fell upon a short, dark-haired woman, dressed in a smart black pants-suit. The woman was weaving her way through the concourse, clutching a cup of coffee tightly and wearing a distracted air. Cordelia had never seen her before, but somehow knew instantly who she was. She picked up her purse and went after her.

The woman took a route away from the ER and towards the ICU, along hallways which were busy but no longer jammed. Cordelia followed her at a distance, not sure what to do next. By the time the woman had arrived at her destination, a private room off a side corridor in the ICU, Cordelia had decided what approach to take. She waited for a moment outside the door, then knocked and pushed it gently open. "Hi. You're Mrs Tanner, right? Lauren's mom?"

Inside the room, the woman started up from the seat beside the single bed. The bed was designed for an adult, and so the body of the little girl who lay in it seemed impossibly small and doll-like. Her head had tilted to one side on the pillows, so that she faced towards the door, and Cordelia could see the twin plastic tubes emerging from her nose, and the larger tube which snaked out of her mouth. "Yes, that's me. Are you…" Mrs Tanner was looking at her, and Cordelia shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware that her evening dress was hardly suitable attire for her current surroundings. "Oh, I thought you were one of the doctors. I guess not. You must be from the school."

"I heard Lauren wasn't well. I just wanted to call by and see how she was doing."

"She's sleeping now." Mrs Tanner sat again and took hold of her daughter's hand. With her other hand, she reached up and brushed the girl's hair off her face. "It was a good night. I thought the class sang beautifully. Lauren was so excited about her solo. She wants to be singer, you know, when she grows up." She looked up and smiled, and Cordelia saw that her eyes brimmed with tears.

"Lauren's singing was great. She was just great. Mrs Tanner, she's going to be fine. I know it."

Mrs Tanner shook her head, as if in incomprehension. "One minute she was fine, getting ready to go on to the stage, and then she was screaming, rolling on the floor, crying with the pain…"

"Do the doctors know what it is yet?"

"They're not sure. At first they thought she'd eaten something. They pumped her stomach. But now, with the fever and the rash, they're talking about an infection. I don't think they know." Her voice began to shake. "I just want to know what's wrong with my baby."

Feeling helpless, Cordelia approached the bed and placed her hand on the older woman's trembling shoulder. She kept it there until the shuddering stopped. After several minutes' silence, Mrs Tanner said, "I've been sitting with her since they brought her in and I haven't even… I should call her father."

"Use my cell-phone," said Cordelia, opening her purse. "I can sit with Lauren for a little while."

Mrs Tanner nodded gratefully and accepted the phone. "I'll be right outside."

Alone with the girl, Cordelia pulled the hospital bed's blankets higher around her still form. As she did so, her fingers brushed a piece of paper which had slipped between the sheets. She lifted it and found it was a flier for Glendale Grammar School's Music of the World Night. Seven o'clock, Sunday 25 June, All Welcome. She folded the paper in half and slipped it in her purse.

The child stirred and moaned in her sleep, turning her head and tugging at the tubes. As she moved, she exposed the left side of her face and neck for the first time. Cordelia stared. The mottled red rash corrupting Lauren Tanner's skin was not yet as virulent as that which Cordelia had seen on the vampire in the restaurant, but it clearly sprang from the same source.

"Lauren," she said softly, "If you can hear me, I want you to know it's going to be okay. You've got your very own guardian angel now. And he kicks ass."

 

* * *

 

Angel felt like kicking something, hard.

The staff on both the E.R and the I.C.U main desks had refused to disclose any information about Lauren Tanner, or even to confirm that there was a patient of that name in the hospital. The second woman to whom Angel had spoken had threatened to call security unless he could produce documentary proof that he was a relative. Angel couldn't, so he had returned to the spot where he had left Cordelia, only to find her gone.

"She's not here," said the drunk in the seat by the door, slurring the words.

"Did you see where she went?"

The man stabbed a finger in the direction of a hallway. "She went that way. Hey, you're cute."

Angel left the drunk and followed the corridor, pausing at each open door or branch route to check for Cordelia. He had retraced his path almost all the way to the I.C.U with no success when he passed two doctors standing at the side of the corridor, deep in conversation. The first, a tall middle-aged black man, was examining the clipboard which his companion, a young Hispanic woman, had just handed to him. As Angel went by, he heard the name 'Tanner' clearly detach itself from the general hum of conversation.

There was a water cooler sitting in an alcove opposite the doctors. Angel took up a position at it and slowly filled a disposable paper cone.

"It's weird, Glen," the woman said. "She's not responding at all. The toxins are out of her system: we should be seeing some improvement by now."

Glen frowned. "Hell of a toxicology report. How does an eight-year-old ingest silver nitrate?"

Angel drank the water, listening. He refilled the cone and turned around.

"We don't know. She was under constant supervision all day at school, and her mother says Lauren didn't leave her sight between coming home and going back in the evening. She was taking part in some kind of musical production."

"And what are her current symptoms?"

"High fever, muscular spasms, and a distinctive red-purple rash that started to develop about an hour after she was brought in."

"From silver nitrate poisoning? No, I don't think so. Either she ate something else as well, or there's an infection at work entirely separate to the poisoning. In which case, I don't rate her chances." He returned the clipboard to the woman. "Get Mike to re-perform the blood tests. And find her a bed in the I.C.U."

The doctors began to walk away, still talking. Angel screwed up the paper cup and threw it in the trash. He began to follow them.

"Quite a thirst you've got there."

Angel stopped. He turned around, slowly. "Hello, Lindsey," he said pleasantly.

Lindsey ignored him, patting the top of the water cooler with his left hand. "Water doesn't hit the spot, though, does it? It must kill you to be around all these people bleeding. Waste of a good meal."

"Let me guess," said Angel: "You're here for a prosthetic fitting?"

Lindsey smiled smugly, and dropped a paper cone into the curve of the hook which jutted out incongruously from the right sleeve of his suit's jacket. With his other hand, he held down the cooler's tap, filling it up. "Come the next full moon, I'll have a replacement that's superior in every way. Just another part of the Wolfram and Hart employee benefits package."

"They'll replace you part by part," said Angel. "One morning you'll wake up and there'll be nothing of you left at all."

Lindsey dropped the paper cone on to the floor and stepped closer to Angel, raising his right arm until the sharp point of the hook pushed into Angel's cheek. "Funny. Because as I recall, it wasn't my firm that cut my hand off above the wrist."

"Hey, if it isn't the clawyer. Can I give you a hand with anything, Lindsey?"

Angel saw Lindsey's eyes flick away from him towards the source of Cordelia's voice. He took advantage of the distraction to step backwards, breaking contact. Cordelia came to stand at his side, and they faced each other in edgy silence for a moment, while staff and visitors flowed around them in the hallway, oblivious.

Behind Lindsey, the door to a private room opened and a white-haired man in a wheelchair emerged, pushed by another man and pursued by an agitated nurse.

"Excuse me, you cannot just remove this man from the hospital. He is seriously ill. He is in no condition to be moved. Who are you people?"

"Well," said Lindsey to Angel and Cordelia, "don't think it hasn't been fun, because it hasn't, but duty calls." He shrugged and turned to the nurse, tucking his right arm behind his back. "I'm Lindsey McDonald. My firm is Wolfram and Hart - we represent Mr Favard's interests."

"This man doesn't need a lawyer, he needs a doctor. His pulse is so weak we can't even pick it up, his body temperature indicates severe hypothermic shock, he is…"

"He's a vampire," whispered Cordelia to Angel.

Angel nodded, and said quietly, "A very old vampire. Look at his hands. Cloven."

"I can assure you," Lindsey was saying, "We are fully aware of our client's medical history. There is a bed prepared for him in a private clinic, and an ambulance waiting outside to take him to it. If you will simply release him into my care, I assure you, he will receive the best treatment."

Angel watched the argument a second longer, then touched Cordelia's arm and drew her away. They began to walk back to the hospital's main entrance, Cordelia occasionally casting glances behind her in the direction of the escalating argument between Lindsey and the nurse. "Just when I'm thinking tonight can't get any worse, we run into Lindsey McDonald. Next time, remind me not to think."

Angel said, "That vampire, Favard - he was sick too. I saw the rash."

"Lauren has it as well," Cordelia told him. Angel looked at her curiously, and she nodded. "I found her. She's sick, but they're looking after her. I don't think there's anything else we can do here." Her face brightened. "And hey, be proud of me! I got us a genuine, detective-type lead! Look at this." She opened her purse and handed him a piece of paper. Angel unfolded it and read the contents.

"'Music of the World Night'?"

"No, dummy. Look at the top. Glendale School, and there's the address. I talked to Lauren's mom. She said Lauren got sick real fast, and she was at school all day and in the evening, for the performance. We should check it out."

She was brimming with enthusiasm, and it was somehow infectious. "Yeah. Good work, Cordelia." He smiled. "Clawyer. Give him a hand. That was pretty funny."

She grinned at him. "I wasn't Sunnydale High's Queen of the Cutting Put-Down for nothing. And as for the one-hand jokes… God, I can keep those coming forever."

She marched defiantly out into the night. Angel followed her.

**8: Is That a Crossbow in Your Trunk, or Are You Just Pleased to See Me?**

Wesley listened carefully as Cordelia related the evening's events to him, polishing his glasses and interrupting occasionally with questions. Angel filled in the details of the conversation he had overheard, then fell silent, allowing Cordelia to gravitate towards her natural position as the centre of attention. As soon as they had arrived back at her apartment, she had changed out of the evening dress into a casual shirt and three-quarter length trousers. On her shins, the puncture wounds were beginning to heal over, each one now no more than a flushed red circle with a single bead of blood solidifying at its centre. Angel's attention started to wander, and after a moment he found his gaze tracking upwards towards Cordelia's neck and the faint pulse of the carotid artery just under her skin.

He blinked and forced himself to look away. Gunn's unexpected arrival at the start of the evening had meant he hadn't fed since the previous night, and he hadn't realised how hungry he had become. Leaving Wesley and Cordelia still talking, he went to the kitchen and blasted a tub of blood from the refrigerator in the microwave for half a minute. As soon as the oven bleeped, he removed the container, broke its seal and gulped down the contents greedily. The pig's blood was stale and tasted sour, but when he had finished it he still wanted more.

Cordelia's voice called out from the lounge: "Angel, are you okay in there?"

He fought down the desire to lick the tub clean, and instead went to the sink and washed his hands under scalding hot water. The sensation of near-pain distracted him for long enough to bring his need under control. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"I mean, you're not sick or anything?"

He dried his hands and returned to the main room. "Cordelia, I'm fine. Really."

She appeared unsatisfied with his response. "Because I was thinking if you're going to go out again, maybe you should wear one of those surgical mask things-"

Wesley was shaking his head. "Even if this is some kind of disease, that wouldn't help. Vampires don't need to breathe, remember. It's being spread by some other means."

Angel sat at the table, thinking that something about the plague theory bothered him. "Wesley, did you find anything in the books tonight?"

"Just the Aberjian prophecies. I'm beginning to think I misinterpreted them."

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "Ooooh, that'd be a first."

"Not mistranslated," said Wesley crossly, "misinterpreted. What if 'a plague of blood-drinkers' doesn't mean a plague consisting of vampires but rather a plague upon them? The English could be interpreted in both senses."

Angel shook his head decisively. "I'm not buying that. If there was such a thing as a vampire disease, I would have heard stories about it long before now. Let's forget the plague idea for a minute. If it's not that, what's the next most likely alternative?"

Wesley thought for a moment. "All right then, possibility number two would be some kind of mass poisoning. There's only one way that could happen - contamination of the food supply. Bad blood."

"Lauren's doctors thought she was suffering from silver nitrate poisoning, among other things," said Angel. "Any compound of silver would do a lot of damage to a vampire if it was ingested."

"Silver, one of the three mystical metals," agreed Wesley thoughtfully. "Yes…"

"Wait a second," put in Cordelia. "We have one very sick little girl and lots of sick vamps. What have they been doing, nibbling her en masse?"

"There are certain substances," said Wesley slowly, "which are much more toxic to vampires than to mortals. Compounds of silver are harmful to us, but even the tiniest quantities can do serious damage to a vampire. So in theory, one could immunise a population against vampire infestation by dosing everyone with very small amounts of, well, a silver compound, or perhaps one of the essential oils of garlic, diallyl disulfide perhaps. The individuals treated would feel no ill effects, but their blood would be quite undrinkable."

Cordelia's expression lightened. "Oh, I see. Like my supplements. I take my vitamin E every day, and if my life's blood is drained by a creature of the night, he gets terrific skin as well as dinner."

"Umm. Yes, I suppose so. But if you dosed too high…"

Angel finished for him: "If you dosed too high, you'd poison the most vulnerable individuals. Starting with the children."

"Gunn mentioned rat poison," said Wesley. "It didn't really strike me at the time, but it's beginning to feel like an increasingly apt analogy." His expression became suddenly grave: "The prophecy foretold 'death unto those who live also.'"

Cordelia got up and disappeared into the kitchen; Angel heard the refrigerator door opening and closing and when she returned a moment later, she was carrying a glass of water. "Time out, guys. Reality check, huh?"

Wesley looked at her. "Cordelia?"

She shrugged. "There are vamps all over LA, right? We don't know how many there are, but they're pretty spread out. It's not like the tourist maps mark Chinatown, Beverley Hills and the Vampire District. You'd have to dose pretty much everybody from here to the San Gabriel Valley to be sure of getting even half of them." She lifted her glass and took a drink. "And how would you do that?"

Angel looked at Cordelia, the glass in Cordelia's hand, then Wesley. In unison, they said; "The water supply."

Cordelia yelped and dropped her glass, spilling its contents over the wooden table top.

"You're drinking mineral water," Angel reminded her.

"I knew that." She made desultory efforts to wipe up the spill, using her sleeve, before it escaped the edge of the table. "I just, um… My hand slipped. I've got slippy hands."

Wesley looked at Angel.. "If we're right, then that little girl is just the first of many. If someone wants rid of LA's vampires, but doesn't mind if they take out some of the human population at the same time, we could be on the brink of a public health disaster. Where does the city's water come from, anyway?"

Cordelia had fetched a roll of paper towels and was soaking up the last of the spill. "Most of it comes from the Los Angeles aqueduct system," she said absently, concentrating on the job at hand. "It brings meltwater down from the Sierra Nevada. There are seven reservoirs, but the biggest by a lot is Long Valley. If I was going for maximum coverage with minimum effort, that's the one I'd hit."

"You know about reservoirs?" said Wesley, his tone falling somewhere between impressed and outright shocked.

Cordelia sniffed defensively. "I know about a lot of stuff. It's just that, unlike some people I could mention, I don't tend to go on and on about it unless it's relevant." She frowned. "Actually, scratch the reservoir idea. You couldn't just dump a barrel of silver nitrate over the side and expect no one to notice. They test for that kind of thing all the time."

"It's still worth following up. Silver nitrate poisoning is only one of Lauren's problems. We still don't have an explanation for her other symptoms. Magical compounds would easily slip through scientific checks." Angel stood, and picked up his coat from the back of the chair. "First thing in the morning, I want you two to pay a visit to Lauren's school. If we're wrong about the city's water supply being contaminated, then the most likely alternative is that she got sick from something given to her there."

Wesley looked at him. "And if we're right about the water?"

Angel shrugged on his coat. "Then we need to convince the city authorities of the danger. Which is what I'm going to try to do now."

"That's not what I meant," said Wesley. "Angel, you might not share a food source with L.A's vampire population, but you do drink coffee. You might have been exposed already."

"Uh-uh." Cordelia held up her nearly empty glass. "Not in my home."

Wesley was confused. "I don't follow."

"Cordelia doesn't trust anything that doesn't come out of a bottle," explained Angel. "And it seems mineral water is good for the complexion."

"And your colour's totally improved since you've been staying with me," said Cordelia conclusively. "I rest my case. Although if you go anywhere now, all you're going to do is get yourself the world's finest all-over tan. It's nearly dawn."

She pointed at one of the apartment's windows, and Angel saw the faint blue-grey light suffusing the horizon above the street lamps. "What I have in mind shouldn't take too long," he said, shrugging on his coat. "Don't worry. If I get caught, I'll find cover."

Although, he thought as he lifted his car keys and left, where he was going, he would be more likely to need to take cover from a freshly sharpened stake than sunlight.

He didn't think Kate Lockley was going to be especially happy to see him.

* * *

 

"It's ten a.m. and you're listening to KCBS on 93.1 FM. Coming up: traffic and travel. But first, here's a real classic - and if you can remember this being a hit the first time around then it's official: you're old."

The first notes of California Dreamin' by the Mamas and Papas drifted from the Plymouth's speakers. Angel reached down and turned the radio off, at the same time putting the car into gear and backing up further into the shade.

The car park adjacent to the LAPD's headquarters enjoyed - if that was the right word - sewer access, but Angel had decided to drive anyway. Experience, and Cordelia's less subtle comments, had taught him that the odour that clung after using that route of travel was more than a little unpleasant to the human nose. If he was to stand any chance of making Kate listen, he was going to need every advantage he could get, and he was prepared to consider not smelling like untreated effluent a definite asset.

Kate's car was in the bay opposite him, on the ground floor of the multi-storey parking lot. Angel had been hoping she would end her shift sometime before eight but Kate, for whatever reason, was still at work, and sunrise had come and gone hours ago. The ground floor of the parking lot was covered and consequently shady, but the level of ambient light was sufficient to bother Angel considerably. His head hurt, and his exposed hands and face felt raw and hot. Moreover, whatever happened he was going to have to choose between staying put until nightfall or abandoning the car and returning to collect it after dusk. He hoped this meeting would be worth the inconvenience.

He sighed in resignation and turned the radio on again, hopping to a news channel and listening for any reports of outbreaks of unexplained illnesses. There were none. He suspected it would only be a matter of time.

A short woman with curly, dark hair walked by, glancing at him guardedly on the way past. Angel watched her, for lack of anything else to do. A minute later, a heavily built man, the side of his face and neck covered in dense tattoos followed her. He ignored Angel.

Vampire.

Angel stared after the man, wondering if his instincts were wrong. Even when active during the day, vampires never hunted when the sun was above the horizon. There were too many risks, too great a possibility of discovery or exposure to the sun's harsh light. Vampires preferred their prey terrified, alone and disadvantaged in the dark. A vampire would only hunt during the day out of desperation - or because it was certain of an easy kill.

Angel got out of the convertible and closed the door quietly behind him. The floor of the parking lot was an oblong, built around a central shaft. The woman, and the vampire tracking her, had already disappeared around the corner leading to the next side of the oblong. If he listened carefully, Angel could just make out their echoing footsteps. He picked up his pace and ran to the next corner, avoiding the bright slanting rays of the morning sun.

He smelt blood.

It was fresh, hot and human. And very close.

It called to him, invited him, sustenance calling to appetite. He responded, feeling the part of himself that was hunger and nothing more rising to the surface. He felt himself change, and he growled.

He turned, and in the shadows saw the tattooed vampire bending over the woman's struggling body, his jaws clamped to her neck. The vampire opened his eyes, saw Angel, and released his victim. He emerged from the shadows, and Angel saw that the tattoo which spread over the entire right hand side of his face and neck was in fact writing. Densely packed script filled the hollows of his cheeks and the smooth expanse of skin above his eye.

"Leave her," said Angel.

"This one's mine. Go find your own."

"I think you're missing the point."

"No." Tattoo-Face grinned. "You are."

He launched himself at Angel, flooring him with a flying tackle, and immediately Angel knew he was in trouble. The other vampire had just fed, and was preternaturally strong.

They rolled through the shadows, locked together in a mass of kicking limbs, until Angel managed to force Tattoo-Face off him. A swift kick in the chest sent the other flying back into a concrete pillar. He followed it up with two fast punches to either side of the vampire's head, then grabbed him, attempting to manoeuvre his opponent into a patch of bright sunlight.

"The word is upon me," said Tattoo-Face: "'And a plague shall come upon the city of angels, and there shall be death.'"

Angel hesitated, and his opponent took advantage of the moment to slip from under him, rolling free and jumping to his feet before Angel could turn around. Before he had time to react, Angel found himself pinned to the ground, being moved inexorably towards the same shaft of light he had been trying to push Tattoo-Face into moments earlier.

He pushed back, and for several long seconds they were locked as if frozen, two forces in opposition and perfectly matched. Then the tattooed vampire began to bear down harder, and Angel was slipping towards the sun's deadly heat.

The top of his head began to burn. Instinctively, Angel put up a hand to protect himself, and felt his palm begin to scorch. The tattooed vampire casually grabbed his wrist and held his hand in the light. Angel stared: the other vampire's hand reddened and blistered, but did not burn.

Tattoo-Face was smiling, a manic, fervent smile. "This is the winnowing. We are the chosen; we are strong. The strong will prevail and the weak will be scoured from the earth."

The vampire's body jolted, and he gave a cry. Through his pain, Angel saw a crossbow bolt appear suddenly in the flesh of his opponent's left shoulder. Tattoo-Face leapt off him, and Angel rolled into the shade, clutching his injured hand to his chest. He struggled to his knees in time to see Tattoo-Face diving into the front seat of a van with smoked windows, which quickly roared off into the traffic outside the parking lot, pursued on foot for some distance by a slim blonde woman with a crossbow. At the parking lot's entrance, she gave up and walked back towards Angel.

"If bullets could hurt your kind, he'd be dead," said Kate as she neared him, shouldering the crossbow. "My aim with a gun is better. I'm still learning how to handle this thing. But I'm improving fast."

"Bullets do hurt. They just don't kill." Angel put his uninjured hand to the ground and started to push himself up. A sudden stab of pain through his elbow and up into his shoulder made him reconsider. He shut his eyes against the glare of sunlight from outside the multi-storey and fought back the sensation of nausea growing in his stomach. When he opened his eyes again, Kate was attending to the woman lying unconscious in the shadows. "Is she alive?"

Kate didn't reply. She put down the crossbow and unclipped a cell-phone from her belt. After a moment, Angel heard the emergency operator's faint response. "This is Detective Kate Lockley, LAPD. I need an ambulance for a mugging victim. She's lost a lot of blood. I'm on the ground floor of the parking lot on Central Avenue, beside the Japanese Museum. Thanks." She slipped the phone into a pocket, and straightened up, addressing Angel. "They'll be a few minutes. If I were you, I'd vanish before they get here. Or before I decide I need some more target practice." She nudged the crossbow with her toe.

"I came to see you."

Kate raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Because, y'know, with the lurking next to my car for the past three hours, I'd never have guessed. I was hoping you'd give up before I ran out of paperwork to do."

"We need to talk."

"We have nothing to say to each other. I thought after our last run-in that was pretty clear." She began to walk away from him.

"I have information you can use." Angel made another effort to get up, and failed again. The nausea intensified, then receded. An old instinct, some ancient remnant of humanity, kicked in and he breathed deeply. There was no benefit to be had from inhaling and exhaling, but the rhythm of the action and the concentration required to perform it made him feel temporarily better. "Someone may be trying to poison the city's water supply."

She hesitated, then turned back to him. "Okay, point to you. I wasn't expecting that."

Angel could see he had her attention. Quickly, he continued. "There's a girl in the I.C.U at St Matthew's, her name is Lauren Tanner. She has silver nitrate poisoning, and something else as well, we don't know what yet. There's a chance what made her ill is in the water and if that's right, she's only the first. Someone has to convince the city health department to check the reservoirs, the water treatment plants."

"Someone being me," said Kate dryly. "What, you were afraid they wouldn't listen to a P.I. without a license? No, don't even answer that."

"Something else," said Angel. "The vampire we just chased - I think he's part of this."

"Drop the 'we'. I didn't see you doing any running." Kate shrugged. "I got the van's plates, I would've checked it out anyway."

Angel blinked, and for a moment there were two Kates in front of him, both striking irritated stances with their hands on their hips and lips pursed. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he tried to steady himself on the heaving ground. "Then you'll help."

The Kates leaned over him, wearing twin expressions of annoyance. "No, I won't help. I will follow up your tip-off, and if it leads to something I *may* get back to you. We're not playing on the same team here, Angel. If our goals happen to coincide for ten minutes then fine, but don't start thinking you've got a friend."

"You can contact me at Cordelia's," he told her. His mouth was dry and it was an effort to force out the words. "The water…"

"Dammit, I said I'll do it. Now get up and get out of here before I have to explain you to someone."

"I'm leaving," he said, and with a final, massive effort stood up. There were lots and lots of Kates now. They circled and spun and made pretty kaleidoscope patterns.

Night fell again, and not in a good way.

**9: Parents' Day**

Glendale Junior School was a single-storey, modern building set in several pleasant acres of lawns and play areas. Getting out of Cordelia's car, Wesley wondered briefly how the single term 'school' could be used to describe both this friendly place and the austere establishment in the Oxfordshire countryside where he had spent some of the most miserable days of his childhood.

Beside him, Cordelia straightened her jacket and gave a small, wistful sigh. "What is it?" he asked.

"Oh, I was just thinking… It seems like only yesterday you were holding my hand at my demon spawn's ultrasound, and now we're picking a school. Don't they grow up fast, honey?" Wesley looked at her, and she shrugged. "Oh, c'mon. I'm an actress. I'm fleshing out the role."

"We're here to investigate, not take part in an improvisation masterclass," Wesley told her firmly.

"Sweetie," said Cordelia.

"Cordelia, I mean it."

"Honey," said Cordelia pointedly, her gaze fixed over his left shoulder: "Look."

Wesley turned around, and found himself face to face with an older man whose dark hair was greying markedly around his temples. The man held out a hand to him. "Mr and Mrs Price. I'm pleased to meet you. Surprised, but pleased. When you said you'd drop by and see the school, I didn't think you meant within the hour. I'm Jeff Perry. I'm the Principal of Glendale."

Wesley gripped Perry's hand firmly, smiling. "Well, we're very keen to place our daughter as soon as possible. With the move from England, she's missed enough of her education already."

"I don't think I got your daughter's name on the phone…?"

Wesley opened his mouth to reply, and blanked. He looked at Cordelia. "Regan."

"Regan?" repeated Cordelia, a note of incredulous disapproval clear in her tone.

Principal Perry looked from Wesley to Cordelia, his smile still present but now somewhat forced. "Well, I'm sure that, ahhh, Regan will be very happy here. If you'd like to come with me, I'll show you the school."

Perry led them up the gently sloping avenue which led to the main school building, pointing out the various facilities on the way past. Cordelia hung back and slipped her arm through Wesley's, an action which allowed her to lean close enough to him to speak without being overheard. "Regan? You called our daughter Regan?"

"I'm sorry," whispered Wesley in reply: "It was the first name that popped into my head."

"You didn't even consult me!" Cordelia's eyes narrowed: "That's what's wrong with this marriage. You never listen to my opinion."

"Just be grateful I didn't say Goneril."

In front of them, Perry was holding open a door. They passed through, and into a wide corridor, lit from above by sloping skylights and lined with displays of the children's artwork. "So, how did you hear about us?" Perry asked.

"Friends of ours recommended Glendale," said Wesley. "The Tanners. They have a daughter Regan's age, Lauren."

"Ah, yes," said Perry. His expression was sober. "We're all very concerned about Lauren. Her teacher is going to encourage the class to make get-well cards for her."

Wesley examined Perry's face closely as he spoke, searching for any sign of insincerity in his manner. He saw only genuine concern.

"I was talking to Lauren's mom last night," said Cordelia. "The doctors don't seem to know what's wrong with her yet."

They walked slowly along the corridor, and now passed window which looked in on a class in progress. Wesley paused for a moment, watching a group of some twenty children gather around their teacher like chicks around a mother hen. The children looked to be no more than five or six, and he guessed this was one of the school's most junior classes. The teacher was holding up a series of flashcards bearing pictures of farmyard animals, and Wesley could see her clearly enunciating their names in turn, encouraging the class to repeat the words after her,

"The possibility of silver nitrate poisoning has been mentioned," Perry was telling Cordelia behind him. "But I can assure you, Mrs Price, there is no way Lauren could have had access to any kind of hazardous substances while she was at school. The only chemicals we have on site are sanitary products, and those are kept locked away at all times."

In the classroom, one of the children had stopped responding to the lesson. The chubby-faced blonde boy rolled over on to his side and rubbed his stomach. After a moment, his teacher put down her cards and went to pick him up. Wesley was still watching when, without warning, the boy vomited violently. The bile was streaked with blood.

Through the window, Wesley heard the sound of children crying.

"Oh my God," said Perry. Leaving Wesley and Cordelia, he rushed into the classroom.

Cordelia was pale. "Did you see that? He was fine and then… Wesley, did you see that?"

"I saw." Wesley looked up and down the empty corridor, then grabbed the sleeve of Cordelia's jacket. Inside the classroom, Perry and the teacher were wholly occupied with the sick boy. "Come on."

Cordelia glanced back once, then went after him. "What? Where?"

Wesley followed the hallway, past stacked chairs and desks and a water cooler, looking into the other classrooms and opening doors where there was no internal window. "I just had a thought. We agreed it appeared as if there were some kind of magical element to the children's illness, apart from the poison. Well, very often, to perform a curse upon the victim's health, the perpetrator has to be physically close to them while casting the magic."

"So we're looking for someone mixing herbs, chanting in Latin, that kind of thing?"

"Very probably."

"Someone like her, in other words," said Cordelia, pointing.

Wesley looked through the door Cordelia had just opened into an empty classroom. In the centre of the room stood a slim, dark haired woman. She held her hands out from her sides, and was in the act of crumbling dried leaves into a circle chalked on to the floor.

In an instant, Wesley was inside the classroom. He strode through the circle and swiped the woman's arms to one side. She broke off mid-incantation, while a flurry of dried-leaf confetti fluttered to the ground.

"Stop that right now, or…" He looked to Cordelia for help.

"Or we'll report you," she finished for him. "You can't do magic in a school. Well, not that we didn't at my school, more than a few times actually, but that was kind of exceptional and anyway these kids are a lot younger and I'm drifting off the point here, aren't I?"

"Who are you?" asked the woman. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you using the dark arts to make children ill," said Wesley angrily. "I'm talking about Lauren Tanner and now that little boy in the class down the hall."

The woman stared at him, then at her stained hands and the circle at her feet. She began to cry. "Oh God. Don't tell me it's happened to another one. This is the strongest charm I know."

She let her arms drop to her sides and leaned backwards against the teacher's desk, crying harder. Wesley knelt down and examined a selection of the leaves scattered on the floor.

"That's a really crappy act, lady," said Cordelia. "You're not convincing anyone."

Wesley held up a leaf. "It's not an act. These are medicinal herbs- loosestrife, ribgrass, milkweed. They're used in protective magic."

The woman wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "I'm a Wiccan. White magic only. I'm also a teacher, and I can't stand by and watch something black attack the children in my care."

Wesley stood up. "My apologies. It appears we're on the same side after all. I'm Wesley, this is Cordelia. We're trying to help Lauren."

"Maggie Scott. I'm her teacher."

"What do you mean, something black?" asked Cordelia.

Maggie shook her head. "I have a sense for good and evil. Always have had. A couple of weeks I started to feel the presence of something dark. Here, within the school. I couldn't tell what it was, or how it came to be here… I just knew that something intended harm to the children." She made a small, helpless gesture. "I tried everything I knew, from divination charms to slipping psylis eucalipsis into the staff room coffee to unmask demon possession. Nothing. I'd almost convinced myself I was being paranoid, and then we had the music night, and Lauren…" She shook her head. "I can't stop it. It's going to take them one by one and I can't stop it."

"We'll stop it," said Wesley. "Whatever else we do, we will stop this."

"Umm, excuse me," interrupted Cordelia, "but you didn't happen to get any particularly strong feelings around the sinks, did you?"

Maggie frowned in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

Wesley explained, "We believe Lauren is ill because of something in the water supply."

Maggie shook her head decisively. "No. My sense is very specific. Water pipes run everywhere, but the evil I sense is localised. It's in one place, inside the school. But there's strong concealing magic at work, and I can't find the source." She waved a hand at the scattered herbs: "Whatever I do."

"Mr Price. Mrs Price. You're here. And you've met Ms Scott. I… Good. That's good." Wesley looked to the door, where Principal Perry stood, red-faced and anxious. "I'm sorry, one of the younger children isn't feeling well and in light of recent events, I've decided to call an ambulance. Just in case. I'm afraid we're going to have to cut your tour short."

Wesley nodded. "That's quite all right. We understand."

Perry nodded once, then propelled Wesley and Cordelia out of the school and back to the car more quickly than was strictly polite. They watched him make his way back up the drive at a near- run.

When he was out of earshot, Cordelia said, "Okay. Now I'm confused. It's in the water, it's not in the water. It's poison, it's a disease, it's a curse… What is this, choose your own malaise?"

"I was rather hoping this visit would clear a few things up," agreed Wesley. "Unfortunately, it seems only to have served to muddy the waters further."

He broke off as Cordelia's cell-phone rang. He watched her turn it on, answer it, then hold it away from herself and squint at the liquid crystal display. "Is something wrong?"

"That was my apartment phone number. It rang off when I answered."

"Angel?"

"Or Dennis. But I hope it isn't Dennis."

"Why not?"

"Because Dennis only ever calls me when something's really, really wrong and I have to get home as fast as possible," said Cordelia. "Wesley, let's go."

**10: Dead Man Walking**

L.A.'s midday traffic seemed, if possible, even worse than usual, and the drive back from Glendale shredded Cordelia's already fraying patience. Arriving at the apartment, she parked the car on the street, badly, looking out for the black Plymouth convertible and not seeing it. "Angel's not back."

Wesley got out of the passenger side of the car and locked the door. "Hardly surprising. He hadn't returned by the time we left for the school this morning, and it was light then. His transport isn't exactly suitable for daytime travel." He shook his head. "What makes a vampire want to drive a convertible?"

"A sense of style," said Cordelia with admiration. She crossed the street, digging her keys out of her purse as she went.

Outside her apartment door, she made to turn the key in the lock, then hesitated. She looked at Wesley, who looked back. "What is it?" he asked.

"In the movies, this would be the part where one or both of us pulls out a gun, and we walk into certain danger in a stealthy and heavily armed way. You don't happen to have a gun?"

He held up a stake. "I have a sharp stick."

"One of us really needs to apply for a gun licence." Cordelia exhaled, turned the key and pushed the door open. The apartment was dim, the blinds drawn. "Dennis? Safe to come in?"

The vase of flowers by the door swayed and bobbed in a non-existent draft. Cordelia decided to interpret that as an all-clear, and stepped inside. She stopped after several paces. "Oh, my God. What is that smell?"

Beside her, Wesley put his hand over his nose and mouth. "Something rotten in Denmark, I fear. Cordelia, look."

He pointed at the floor, and she looked down. The Indian-patterned rug by the couch was stained with a sticky black scum of blood. The front door had only been open for moments, but already half a dozen flies buzzed interestedly over it. There was more blood congealed in the hall which led to the apartment's bedrooms and the bathroom. Cordelia wrinkled her nose in distaste at the stench, and tried not to gag. "Jeez, I'm never gonna get this out of the grain. I'll have to sand and re-varnish it or something."

"Cordelia."

There was a quality of urgency in Wesley's voice that made her drop her bag and join him immediately. He was in the kitchen, and she could see him kneeling by the stove. "What is it? Oh, God."

Angel lay on the floor, eyes closed, moaning quietly. There was another pool of what Cordelia now realised was vomit beside him. "Help me move him," said Wesley.

She nodded dumbly, and took Angel's left arm as Wesley grabbed his right. Together they half-dragged and half-carried him into the living area, depositing him on the couch. He groaned again and his face twisted in pain.

"Angel?" She touched his forehead, and found his skin clammy. Was that good or bad? She was certain vampires didn't feel hot and cold in the same way as mortals, but Angel was shivering violently. He shifted slightly, and she saw that his right hand was badly burnt. The practical side of Cordelia's nature stepped in, relieved to find at least one aspect of the situation she could do something about. "Wesley, get the first aid kit. It's in the bathroom."

"Right."

Angel convulsed and dry-heaved, before gasping and rolling over on the couch. Cordelia still couldn't tell if he was conscious or not. Leaving him, she went to her bedroom and lifted the spare blankets from the top shelf of the closet. Next she found a plastic basin under the sink. Returning with her haul, she busied herself converting the couch into a makeshift bed. She set the basin on the floor near Angel's head. "I wonder how he got back here."

"Detective Lockley brought him," replied Wesley, reappearing with gauze and a bottle of antiseptic.

Cordelia looked at him, impressed. "How'd you know? Oh, wait - Watcher magic."

Wesley appeared slightly embarrassed. "Actually, no. She left a note." He held up a sheet of paper. "It's short, but the gist is that if we don't collect his car from the car park on Central Avenue by this evening, she'll have it impounded. Oh, and don't under any circumstances try to contact her."

"And I thought she didn't care." Carefully, Cordelia dabbed antiseptic on to Angel's hand, then pressed the gauze on top.

Wesley pulled out a seat from the dining table, and sat down. "She helped Angel back here. That's more than I might have expected."

"I guess." There was little more Cordelia could usefully do, so she lifted the unused gauze and started to fold it back into its packet. Her hands were shaking too hard to complete the task accurately. She abandoned the gauze and folded the extra blankets instead, burying her trembling fingers inside swathes of material. Hiding her fear, she looked up at Wesley and said in a steady voice, "He's got it, hasn't he."

"It appears so."

She shook her head. "But we talked about this. He doesn't drink human blood. He *can't* be sick."

"We were wrong about the water making Lauren sick, and now it appears we were mistaken to think it was tainted human blood making the vampires sick." Wesley looked defeated. "We haven't made a correct deduction about whatever this is yet."

Cordelia heard a gasping noise from the couch. It was Angel, breathing. She hadn't even registered that up to now he hadn't been. He started to say something but couldn't get the words out. After a moment, he tried again. "You were right… about this being connected… to the prophecy."

His voice was thin, and he was struggling to sit up. Cordelia helped him into a sitting position, then pushed cushions behind his back to keep him there.

"How do you feel?" asked Wesley.

"Like death."

"In your case, not necessarily a bad thing," said Cordelia brightly. It was a poor joke, but she was gratified to see Angel smile faintly.

"Angel, what about the prophecy?"

He lifted his bandaged hand and gestured sloppily with it. "I made a new friend this morning. Vampire with a facial tattoo and a strong affinity for sunlight. Or at least, more of an affinity than I have. He quoted the prophecy at me. Talked about something he called 'the winnowing'." Angel looked at Wesley. "Mean anything to you?"

Wesley was thoughtful. "It might do… I've heard the term before, I can't quite recall where." He got up and began to dig through one of the boxes of books behind the couch. "What sort of tattoo was it?"

"Writing. Some kind of script."

"Did you see what language it was in?"

"Wesley, he was trying to push me into direct sunlight at the time. I got that it wasn't English." Without warning, Angel doubled over, gasping. Cordelia pushed the basin towards him and waited while he retched over it. When the seizure had passed, he leaned back on the couch. "What did you find at the school?"

"Glinda the Good Witch of the Second Grade," said Cordelia.

"Lauren's teacher is a white witch," elaborated Wesley. "She said she felt the presence of evil within the school. It seems less likely now that the tap water is responsible. Angel, another child is sick, and what we saw looked less to me like poisoning and more like a curse at work. Aha, here it is." He lifted a leather-bound volume and began to flip through the pages, scanning each in turn.

"What I don't get is how Angel got this thing," said Cordelia, getting up and going into the kitchen. She poured a glass of water from the refrigerator and pulled a plastic trash bag from the roll. She returned to the main room and handed the glass to Angel, saying, "I mean it's not like you've been snacking on the quiet. Have you?"

Angel accepted the water and sipped it slowly. "I haven't drunk anything unusual lately."

Cordelia folded over the blood-stained rug and with extreme distaste, fed the rancid bundle into a plastic bag. "Using the word 'unusual' in the loosest possible sense, obviously."

"Aha," announced Wesley triumphantly. He held up the book, tapping a page for emphasis. "I knew I could rely on good old Lucius Temple. The Winnowing refers to some kind of rite undertaken by a vampire cult in sixteenth century Italy."

"People worshipped vampires? Did they have no upwards mobility back then?"

Wesley shook his head. "It was a cult composed of vampires. They called themselves the Brethren. Lucius appears to have had a sneaking admiration for them: the Brethren represented one of the very few instances of vampires creating and maintaining a social order based around a creed of beliefs rather than a single dominant individual." He read the text. "The cult was small, but by all accounts it managed to endure for a long time, several hundred years. And the Winnowing was…" he frowned. "Oh bother."

Cordelia sat down on the arm of the couch. "Don't keep us in suspense."

Wesley looked up apologetically. "He starts talking about his winter roses. Intellectual brilliance and a fanaticism about gardening make for poor prose style. I'm afraid this is going to take a little extended research and cross referencing." He didn't, noted Cordelia, sound very disappointed at the prospect.

"Get on it," said Angel. He started to stand up, using the couch for leverage. "I'm going to go after our tattooed lead. Cordelia, you can…"

"…Catch you when you fall over," finished Cordelia, getting up and grabbing Angel around the torso as he sagged forwards. She staggered under his weight, but managed to help him back to the couch before his strength failed completely. Realising how weak he had become, and how quickly, only fuelled her anxiety. "Angel, you're not up to going anywhere. Not to mention you seem to have forgotten it's the middle of the day. Look, we can do the book work and Wesley can be action man for once." She looked meaningfully at Wesley. "Right?"

Wesley closed the book he was holding uncertainly. "I'm really not sure that's…"

"Right?" repeated Cordelia.

"Right," said Wesley faintly.

For a moment, Cordelia thought Angel was going to argue, but then he shut his eyes and she saw just how exhausted he was. He gave a slow nod. "Find the tattooed vampire. He got away in a van - Kate got the plates. Start by calling her."

Cordelia picked up the note Wesley had found and showed it to Angel. "I don't know how well you two were getting on this morning, but I think the whole throwing-up-pig's-blood thing might have put the chill back on your relationship. She's really not wanting to get involved right now."

"Gunn, then. His group know the city. Take my car. It's…" He broke off, and seemed to be having difficulty concentrating. "I can't remember where I…"

"It's okay," said Cordelia reassuringly. "It's all in Kate's note. Angel, I'm going to take Wesley to get your car, then come back here. Will you be all right until I get back?" His eyes were still closed, and he made no reply. "Angel?"

"He's asleep," said Wesley. He opened the apartment door and stood in it, waiting.

Angel had stopped breathing again. He lay perfectly still, the half-light seeping through the closed blinds making his already sallow skin look even greyer. There was little to distinguish him from a corpse.

Cordelia lifted her car keys from the table, but instead of going, she hesitated. "I don't want to leave him."

She felt a hand on her shoulder and gave a start; she hadn't heard Wesley coming back into the apartment. Gently, he said, "You'll be back before long. And he's going to need you here more later. I'm very much afraid this is just the start of it."

**11: House Call**

Turf. The smell of turf burning. The thick, sweet aroma of the earth itself being consumed by fire. He hadn't smelt it for a long time, but he remembered.

He opened his eyes, wincing against the brightness. The curtains had been pulled tightly shut, but light still leaked into the room from the bright day outside. It hurt. He hated the light. It frightened him, and he didn't know why.

The fire warming the bedroom flickered and rose in the grate. He raised a hand towards it, and felt the flames lick his palm and outstretched fingers. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly stiflingly hot. He tried to turn away from the heat, and could not.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, hear my prayers, I entreat thee."

He looked up. "Mother?"

"Hush, sweet angel of mine. Rest now."

"Forgive me."

"Whatever for, angel?"

He shut his eyes, trying to remember why he needed forgiveness. "Don't call me that…"

He twisted in the bed, trapped inside a knot of sweat-soaked sheets. The light wounded him. He pressed his hands to his face, trying to protect himself, and failing.

His sister's voice rang out from the far side of the room, high-pitched but unwavering. "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood."

He was afraid to look. He had to look. Slowly, he lifted his hands from his face. "Kathy? Kathleen?"

Her skin was waxy and pale, her eyes sunken. She ignored him, and continued to read from the heavy, leather-bound Bible she held in front of her with both hands. It was open at the book of Revelations. "Then I heard the angel of the waters say, 'You are just in these judgements, for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets'."

He shook his head, feeling the sobs rising in his chest. "No. It wasn't me. I promise…"

Implacably, she read on: "…And you have given them blood to drink. As they deserve."

"Drink this," said his mother, and lifted a cup of blood to his lips. He could smell it, salty and sweet at once. He wanted to gag but he drank and kept drinking until he had drained it all. When she rose and turned away from him, he saw the wounds on her neck, weeping and staining the collar of her dress.

"Forgive me," he said. "I beg you."

A noise made him start, and he struggled to see who else was in the room. His father stood in the doorway, shaking his head.

"No. I don't think so."

His father smiled and walked towards the bed, extending before him the hook which ended his right arm where his hand should have been.

 

* * *

 

"There must be hundreds of vamps in LA. What makes this one special?"

Wesley followed Gunn through the dank concrete hallways of his gang's basement hideout. He passed a teenage girl using a Swiss Army knife to whittle stakes, her face a study in concentration, and two younger boys peeling potatoes over a large blackened pot balanced precariously on a gas stove. "He has a rather distinctive tattoo over one side of his face. It looks like writing of some kind."

Gunn made a gesture of impatience. "I meant, why the sudden need to track him down? This some kinda weird scavenger hunt?"

"We think he has something to do with the sick vampires."

"Again I ask: so?"

"Also sick people," said Wesley. "Specifically, sick children. I don't know if they're going to recover or not. I do know that if we don't put a stop to this, people will start dying."

They had arrived at the hideout's main room. Wesley estimated there were some ten or twelve youngsters ranged about it, some engaged in tasks, some talking quietly, some sleeping hunched under scraps of blanket. The oldest, he guessed, was sixteen or seventeen. He didn't want to think how young the smallest might be. Although the children were mixed by age, sex and ethnic background, each individual gaze shared with the others a flinty determination. Wesley looked into pair after pair of eyes which were much older than the faces out of which they stared.

"Sick kids, huh," said Gunn.

"Yes."

"Where's Angel?"

"He's sick too."

Gunn nodded, as if not surprised. "You'll want to get to this tattooed vamp for him as well, then."

"Very much."

Gunn nodded again. "Hey, Cloud. Theo. Get over here."

The girl Wesley remembered from his visit with Angel the previous night joined them, followed by a boy he didn't recognise. Wesley waited while Gunn outlined the situation to them, then repeated his description of the vampire for their benefit.

"Yeah," said Cloud after a moment's thought. "I think I've seen him."

For the first time since finding Angel at Cordelia's apartment, Wesley felt a flash of optimism. "You have?"

"Or one like him. How many tattoo-faced vamps can there be?"

"Where?" asked Gunn.

"We were patrolling along the freeway heading into Hawthorne. I saw him going into one of the industrial estates they have along there. We followed, but we lost him."

Wesley asked, "How long ago was this?"

"Not long. Couple of weeks ago, maybe."

"You could find the place again?"

"Yes, no problem."

Gunn grinned. "Then let's go find ourselves a vamp, Wes."

"Wesley. It's Wes-ley, two syllables…"

But Gunn was already heading for the armoury.

 

* * *

 

Lindsey McDonald's day had started badly, but it was improving rapidly.

At the hospital, it had seemed for a while as if his first new client as junior partner was going to die before Lindsey had a chance to get his signature on a contract. More seriously, there had been a few minutes while he argued with the officious, busy-body nurse when there had been a possibility of difficult questions being asked about Francis Favard's unusual physiology. That would have been worse than an inconvenient death: at Wolfram and Hart, nothing stalled a career faster than attracting the wrong type of publicity.

But arrangements could be made. Lindsey smiled to himself. People could be persuaded by one means… or another.

He had not contacted Holland until Favard was safely on his way to the private clinic on the outskirts of the city which catered to Wolfram and Hart's clients' specialised needs. Strictly speaking Favard, not yet on the books, should not have been accepted as a patient, but Lindsey figured what the hell - if Favard made it, his money was as good as in the firm's bank account. Or in Lindsey's bank account, for that matter, since junior partners qualified for the lower echelons of the profit-sharing scheme.

Holland, surprisingly, was not taken aback by news of Favard's unexpected illness. Apparently he wasn't the only one of the firm's vampire clients to have fallen suddenly and inexplicably ill. In fact, Holland seemed pleased with Lindsey's quick thinking: some of the other lawyers had not responded so swiftly to the crisis, and as a result the Media Relations department was going to have a busy couple of days.

All in all, decided Lindsey as he rang the doorbell of Cordelia Chase's apartment, he had acquitted himself very well. At this rate, his next annual performance review was going to be a breeze.

As Lindsey had expected, no one answered the door. He searched around the porch for a moment, lifting plant pots and the corner of the doormat. There was a spare key under the third pot he checked. Cordelia was so used to dealing with enemies who couldn't come in without an invitation, she had forgotten that not all unwanted visitors needed to be asked inside.

He let himself into the apartment. The blinds were drawn, which meant he had guessed correctly. With his office and home destroyed, Angel had to be staying somewhere.

There was a foul smell hanging in the warm air, a mixture of acid and decay. Lindsey wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"Don't call me that…"

The voice was faint, but Lindsey was easily able to locate its source as the couch facing away from him. He set down his briefcase at the door and, using his left hand awkwardly, he removed the stake he had tucked into his belt, and approached cautiously.

"Kathy," whispered Angel. He was dreaming, or delirious: Lindsey couldn't tell which. "No. It wasn't me."

A dark purple-red rash had broken out on Angel's neck and was fast claiming territory on his face. In some places his skin was a mess of black, malignant bruising, as if his flesh was decaying from the inside out.

Lindsey waved a hand experimentally in front of Angel's open, staring eyes. When there was no reaction, he nodded in satisfaction and put the stake down on the floor. He fetched the briefcase and opened it, one side at a time, taking out the already-assembled hypodermic.

"You know," he said conversationally as he rolled up Angel's sleeve, "I assumed that whatever this was, it was spreading through a contaminated blood supply. But if you're sick too, I guess that rules out that theory. The doctors at the clinic will be very interested to find out a vampire who doesn't feed on human blood has got this too." Playfully, he tapped his hook against Angel's shoulder. "Unless you've been leading us on all this time."

Using the hypodermic was difficult with only one hand, but Lindsey had practised with the needle until he was proficient. He pushed the point into Angel's upper arm and filled it. "Vampiric blood. Has some very unusual properties, but then you probably knew that. I'm told you can cast some really impressive spells with it." He gave a small shrug. "It's not, unfortunately, uninfected by this disease, which is what I was hoping for, but I'll take a sample anyway."

He lifted a sealed tube from the briefcase and injected the contents of the syringe into it. Then he replaced both items very carefully in the case and closed it.

"Forgive me," said Angel. "I beg you."

Lindsey considered this briefly, then shrugged. "No, I don't think so. I was very attached to my hand. Literally." He lifted the stake, stood up and looked down at Angel's rash-blotched face. "Now, I know what you're thinking. Here's you, pretty much helpless, and here's me with a stake and a grudge… but you know what, Angel? I'm a bigger man than that. I don't need to exact petty revenge to feel better about myself." He lowered the stake, and smiled benevolently.

Then he raised it again. "I don't need to. I just want to. And it's not as if I'll have to worry about getting rid of a body."

 

* * *

 

Cordelia dropped Wesley off outside the parking lot on Central Avenue, then drove back to the apartment, breaking the speed limit more or less continuously on the way. She didn't know if her hunch was Powers-That-Be inspired or simply a good old fashioned case of paranoia, but she couldn't shake the feeling that bad things were going to happen.

Although with Angel dying on her couch, bad things were already happening.

Her worst fears were confirmed when she turned into her street. A silver Lexus which she was sure belonged to none of her neighbours was parked right outside her building. The personalised number plate read LMD 1.

This time she didn't hesitate at the door. She walked into the apartment and without deviating her gaze from the man standing over the couch holding a stake, picked up the long ceremonial dagger she knew was sitting on top of one of the boxes of Angel's belongings.

"Drop it," she commanded.

Lindsey looked at her, startled. He quickly regained his composure. "Cordelia. Hi. Nice place you've got here. Shame about the smell."

"Put the stake down," said Cordelia, "or I will hack off your other hand. And then some."

For a moment, she considered the possibility of throwing the knife at him, but rejected it. With more than a shade of regret, she realised that was the kind of move Slayers could pull off, and just about no one else. If she threw the dagger, she would only leave herself defenceless.

Lindsey was watching her, and she guessed he was doing some evaluating of his own. "I'm much closer than you are. He'd be dust before you could get over here."

Without warning, a vase flew off the low table beside the television and hit Lindsey square in the back, knocking the stake from his hand. Cordelia smiled. "I don't have to be close. Look, Lindsey. No hands." She gestured with the dagger. "Now get out of here before I decide to call the police and scream murder."

"It's not murder if he's already dead. He's a *vampire*, Cordelia." Lindsey held up his hooked right arm. "Your boss did this to me. Is that the kind of company you want to keep? You let a blood-sucking demon in your home?"

"I only see one soulless bloodsucker in here," Cordelia told him icily: "And he isn't on the couch."

Lindsey smiled and walked slowly to the door, taking his time. Cordelia circled as he walked past her, facing him with the dagger pointed towards his chest until he stood in the doorway and she was positioned between him and Angel.

"It'd be kinder to put a stake in his chest now. He's going to die and he's going to suffer a lot before it happens."

"Not if I have anything to do with it."

Lindsey turned to go, then looked back. "You mean that, Cordelia? Because if you do, start asking yourself, how far will you go? What are you prepared to do?" He reached into a pocket with his left hand and smoothly withdrew his business card. He held it up, inviting Cordelia to take it and when she didn't, he let it slip from his fingers and on to the floor. "Channel five. Six thirty tonight. While you're watching it, you can start drafting Angel's obituary." Lindsey's smile widened. "It's going to be tough to cover two and a half centuries in under a hundred words."

**12: Still Life**

"This is the place," said Cloud, pointing. "Stop here."

Wesley pulled Angel's convertible off the main road and turned through the open gates of an industrial estate. As he parked the car, he could see the rest of Gunn's gang following him on a mixed assortment of motor bikes and one ancient but heavily armoured pick-up truck.

He got out of the Plymouth and looked around. A large, peeling sign by the main gates said, 'Welcome to Hawthorne Business Park - Our Business is Working!'

Beside Wesley, Gunn eyed the sign then gazed sceptically around the vacant buildings. "Not from where I'm standing, it ain't."

"The place is rather deserted for a weekday afternoon, isn't it?" agreed Wesley.

At his other side, Cloud shrugged. "I think the buildings got damaged in one of the big quakes a few years back. Everyone moved out."

"Empty buildings, lots of cover, probably a good network of underground electricity and water pipes…" Wesley nodded. "It's an ideal location for a nest. All we have to do is work out which building our tattooed friend is hiding out in."

Gunn had wandered over to the side of the road and was studying a plastic laminated map of the estate. "Could be a problem."

Wesley went to join him. "Why?"

Gunn tapped a finger against the map, where separate businesses, now long departed, were identified by a number on a key. The list ran well into three figures. Gunn looked at Wesley. "There's sixteen of us, including you. How many weeks do you want to spend on this?"

* * *

 

Kate Lockley stood at the edge of Los Angeles' Long Valley Reservoir, squinting against the glare of sunlight reflected off the water, even through her sunglasses. In front of her, several hundred million gallons of water rippled in the warm breeze. Almost half the city's water supply. She worked her toe forward in the gravel and watched the tiny wavelets at the shore line soak into her pumps.

"Detective Lockley!"

She turned and looked upwards and behind her, to where a man wearing an L.A. Department of Water and Power boiler-suit stood on the steps of the reservoir's monitoring station. She waved to him, acknowledging that she had heard, and began to make her way up the shore towards the concrete steps which led to the station.

At the top of the steps, she pushed open the door to the LADWP station and re-joined the group inside. "What have you got?"

"Nothing," the station manager told her. "Just like I said you'd find: nothing." His name was Martinez; he seemed to Kate to be reasonably competent, if more than a little riled at her for muscling in on his turf.

"All clear?" she asked.

He nodded. "All clear. We took samples from the main reservoir, and from each of the outflowing aqueducts. They're all A-1, completely normal. You can check 'em yourself."

Kate leaned past Martinez and placed a photocopy of Lauren Tanner's toxicology report next to the data on the reservoir's water. "Any traces of silver nitrate? I mean, even a couple of parts per million?"

"Detective," said Martinez, rolling the title in his mouth as if it were a term of abuse, "If there was one part per billion silver nitrate in that reservoir, there'd be alarms going off from here to City Hall. And I might add, I don't see how one sick kid justifies pointing the finger at the whole city's water supply."

*Neither do I, Mr Martinez.* Kate shut her eyes tiredly. *I just took the word of someone I should have known better than to trust, and I got my fingers burnt. Again.*

Martinez was still talking. With an effort, she made herself tune back into the grating voice.

"I want you to know, Detective, I consider this whole afternoon to have been a complete waste of my time and my staff's time. First thing tomorrow, there will be a letter on your superior's desk from the LADWP, asking why the police department…"

Kate held up a hand to silence him. Suddenly even being polite just didn't seem worth it. "Yeah. Whatever. I'm going."

Ignoring the stream of abuse this provoked, she left the monitoring station and walked back through the afternoon heat to her car. As she opened the door, her cell-phone rang, and she sat on the edge of the driver's seat, feet on the gravel outside the car, to answer it. The liquid crystal display told her who the caller was. "Sheehan. What have you got for me?"

"Hey, Lockley. Maybe something useful. I ran those plates you were looking for."

"And?"

"The van appears to be legally registered to a business called the Still Life Company. Mean anything to you?"

Kate thought. "No, I don't think so. Did you follow it up?"

"As always. I didn't get much, though. The only slightly weird thing is that Still Life was only set up six weeks ago, which may or may not mean anything. The address is in a business park down in Hawthorne. You want it?"

Kate leaned across the car and opened the glove compartment. She dug around in the mess until she found a pad of paper and a pen. "Yeah, why not. It's either that or go back to the office and get chewed for pissing off the Water Department."

On the other end of the line, Sheehan chuckled. "I think there's a joke in there somewhere struggling to get out."

"You wanna hear my stand-up routine. Okay, I'm ready."

"Unit 318, Hawthorne Business Park." He gave her directions, and Kate copied them down. Then she thanked him and began to drive back towards the city.

* * *

 

A turf fire; the bedroom curtains pulled together; his sister, holding a Bible.

Angel blinked, and concentrated.

Los Angeles summer heat; the living room blinds drawn; Cordelia, reading a book.

Reality. If he could just hold on to it, and keep holding.

"Cordelia?" His own voice, dry and rasping, sounded strange in his ears.

He blinked again, opened his eyes and managed to keep them open. It was an effort, but he was rewarded by the sight of Cordelia's beaming smile. "Hey, look who's back."

Faint light diffused the apartment through closed blinds, scouring his skin and battering his eyes. "How long was I out of it?"

"A couple of hours."

"Did I miss anything?"

Cordelia opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to change her mind. "Nothing but me getting intimate with some of the dullest books ever written. You know, if this is what college is like, I'm glad I'm taking Life 101." She lifted an open volume from the table and showed it to him. "Anyhow, I hit paydirt. Wanna hear the low-down on this Brethren thing?"

Keeping his eyes open hurt too much, so Angel closed them. "I'm listening."

"Okay. Vampire cult, sixteenth century Italy, yadda yadda fishcakes…" Cordelia's voice trailed off. "Oh yeah, here we go. The Brethren were not nice to be around, even by vampire standards. They were heavily into the whole 'vampires as a master race' concept, except that as far as they were concerned, no one else was up to the whole ruling the world gig except them. Think Nazi Germany with fangs and you're getting there."

"They saw themselves as superior… Not just to humans, but to other vampires as well."

"Is about the size of it," agreed Cordelia. "Okay, this is the interesting part. The Brethren vampires were tougher than your average vamp - one of the slayers who came up against them and lived reported immunity to the normal vampire-bothering things, crosses, garlic, holy water." She paused. "I don't get the cross thing, personally. I mean, it's two bits of wood. Get over it already."

"The tattooed vampire who attacked me was able to withstand more exposure to sunlight than he should have been able to take."

"Which is another thing - tattoos. The Brethren were big on tattoos. If they found a bit of prophecy they liked, they tended to etch it on to a body part. Guess it made it easier to remember."

"So we're sure that's what we're dealing with. What does it say about the winnowing?"

"That was the Brethren take on ethnic cleansing. When they moved into an area, the first thing they did was kill off all the resident vampires. They *really* didn't like to share."

"The strong will prevail and the weak will be scoured from the earth."

"Well, if you want to put it like that…"

"Not me. The tattooed vampire." Angel tried to think, refusing to acknowledge the dull ache creeping through his limbs and the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Vampires with an immunity to - or at least a high tolerance for - the traditional protective talismans were a disturbing prospect. He tried to recall if he had ever heard rumours of magic which could heighten a demon's powers to that extent, and drew a blank. But if it wasn't magic that made the Brethren vampires invulnerable, what else was there?

"…Angel? Were you listening to *any* of what I just said?"

With an effort, he opened his eyes and focused on Cordelia. "I… No. I drifted."

"Maybe you should just sleep for a while."

The idea of sleeping was seductive, the possibility of dreaming less so. "No. It's better… to try to stay… awake." He was slurring the words, and had to speak slowly and deliberately to make himself clear.

She looked unconvinced, but nodded. "Can I get you something? Nice warm cup of frothy blood with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, anything?"

His mouth was dry, but for once the thought of feeding made his stomach turn. "Water. Just water." He watched Cordelia go to the kitchen, side-stepping the dark stain at the doorway. "I'm sorry about your floor."

"It's okay. Martha Stewart's 'Living' says that a splatter pattern in regurgitated pig's blood is the latest thing in interior design." She returned from the kitchen, pouring mineral water from a bottle into a glass as she walked. Setting the half-empty bottle on the table, she held the glass for him and waited while he drank. When he had finished, she lifted it away. "I called Buffy."

He looked at her, not sure what he wanted to hear next.

"I couldn't get through. I tried all of them, Giles, Willow, everybody, but all I got was a whole load of busy signal. So I rang customer services, and they told me there's a problem with Sunnydale's exchange." She shrugged. "They also mentioned something about a wall of fire surrounding the whole town, but I'd kinda tuned out by then."

The water had temporarily made talking easier. "It's safe to assume they're busy dealing with their own crisis." He tried to raise himself up and as he did so he saw the back of his unbandaged hand. The flesh was an ugly latticework of purple and black bruising. His skin looked as if the slightest pressure might cause it to split open and slough off his bones.

His face must have betrayed more than he intended, because Cordelia said, "Believe me, right now the whole not being able to see yourself in the mirror thing is a definite good."

With his bandaged hand, Angel indicated the book she had been reading from. "You said the Brethren M.O. was to clean out the competition when they moved into an area. Any description of how?"

Cordelia lifted the volume and searched through it. "The usual. Stakes, fire, a truly disturbing penchant for scythes."

"Nothing about plagues or poisoning."

"No."

A sensation of fuzziness was descending on him, and Angel realised he could not depend on being lucid for much longer. Already it was getting harder to concentrate. Something someone had said nagged at the back of his thoughts. More than one person. Something Gunn had said, and Wesley had echoed… "Rat poison."

"We're fresh out. Sure you won't take some blood?"

"No. We've been thinking of this in the wrong way. We assumed that to get coverage of all LA's vampires, you'd have to dose the entire population with the poison through the water supply."

She nodded, confused. "Yeah, and we were wrong."

"But there's another way. You said it: maximum coverage with minimum effort. Choose a selection of locations and lay concentrated doses. Rat poison."

She frowned, thinking that through. "Okay. Say that's the game-plan. Glendale we know about - there's location one."

"And Gunn said his gang were finding most of the sick vampires around downtown."

"The restaurant where I staked the vamp was in Bunker Hill. That's pretty much downtown too."

Angel tried to think. It was difficult. "There's a connection, Kathleen. If we could just see what the connection was…"

"Cordelia," she said quietly. "I'm Cordelia. There's no one called Kathleen here. Angel, you've gotta stay with me. I need you here, not off in la-la land."

The air was heavy with the smell of a turf fire. He struggled to ignore it. "We need a connection."

"The vamps around downtown must have been feeding off people leaving work late at night. It's quiet round there after office hours: if I was a vamp looking for an easy meal, that's where I'd go."

"Offices," said Angel. "The school. What do offices and schools have in common?"

"Jeez, Angel, where do I start? Desks, chairs, paper, books, computers… We could guess forever and not come close."

"The children are sick because of something they ate or drank. The vampires are sick because of something their victims ate or drank. We just have to figure out what."

"Angel, you don't come under either of those categories, and you've got it too. The only thing that connects everybody is the tap water, and we already know from Maggie Scott it's not that. So where does that leave us?"

He was about to reply, but a sudden twist of pain and nausea in his stomach made him gasp and double over. He felt Cordelia's hands on his shoulders as he shuddered and heaved, and heard the ugly splashing noise of bile and water hitting the basin. Eventually, the spasms ceased, but now he lacked the strength to sit up again, and even speaking seemed too much effort.

"Easy," said Cordelia. "Easy now. Here, rinse your mouth out."

She handed him the glass of mineral water, and he took it. The bottle she had poured it from had fallen over on the table, and the label was facing towards him. Still Life Spring Water. Angel had seen the brand logo somewhere before. Recently.

The water cooler he had drunk from in the hospital while he eavesdropped on the doctors. Still Life Spring Water.

What did every office have? A water cooler. Angel was willing to bet Glendale School had a couple too.

"Blood and water," he whispered.

The glass he held fell through his hands and hit the floor, shattering on impact.

**13: My Soul To Thee**

Gunn pushed open the sliding corrugated iron door and checked inside cautiously. He relaxed and announced, "Oh look. It's another big ol' empty warehouse. Not that this is getting old or anything."

Behind him, Wesley looked up the narrow alley which ran in between two rows of deserted storage units, the back entrances of the outwards facing warehouses only a few yards apart. They had checked twenty of the buildings, and he estimated there were perhaps forty more to go. And that was just in this section of the business park. With Gunn's gang split into teams and in touch by radio, they were covering ground faster than Wesley could have otherwise hoped, but so far the search had yielded nothing.

In the distance, the sun scraped the top of the skyline, its light channelled straight down the east-west alleyway. "It's gonna be dark soon," said Gunn. "We'll give it another hour, then come back tomorrow. If there's a nest here, I don't want us stumbling around in the dark looking for it while they pick us off one by one."

Something scratched into the paint work of the dull metal door had caught Wesley's attention. He leaned closer to examine the symbol, freshly scratched into the old emulsion. "Oh, they're here all right. Look at this."

Gunn joined him, and looked critically to the spot Wesley indicated. "Graffiti. Yeah, what about it?"

"It's not graffiti. See those loops? That line? That's the symbol of Charybdis." He nodded triumphantly at Gunn, who stared back blankly. "The symbol of Charybdis," repeated Wesley.

"Yeah, I got that already. You want to quit with the dramatic revelation stuff and tell me what it means?"

"It's a very ancient code used by vampires to mark out their territory. Essentially it means, feed here at your own risk." Gunn gave a disinterested 'whatever' shrug, and Wesley frowned at him. "If you're serious about hunting vampires, you must know the lore. It's simply essential."

"I know the lore. Vamps bad, stakes good. What else do I need, a certificate in demon studies?" He gave a short snort of derision. "I guess now you're gonna tell me you're a professional."

Wesley drew himself up to his full height. "As a matter of fact, yes. I'm a Watcher."

"A Watcher," repeated Gunn. "As opposed to, say, a Do-er. Or a Get-Involved-er."

Hotly, Wesley said, "Watchers have existed for almost as long as there have been vampire slayers. We find potential slayers, then we guide them, train them, support them. It's an ancient calling, and I happen to be very proud of it."

He stopped, aware that he had become a little more worked up than he had intended. Gunn was grinning. "Don't lose it, Wes, I hear ya. So what's a Watcher doing working for a vamp? Not enough slayers to go round or something?"

"Well, it's… a long story. Essentially, I'm freelance these days."

"You mean you quit?"

Wesley shifted uncomfortably.

"Oh man," said Gunn. "You got fired?"

"Technically, I resigned before…" Wesley's cell-phone rang, and he answered it with a deep sense of relief. "Hello?"

"Wesley, it's me." Cordelia's voice was tight, and she sounded as tense as he had ever heard her. "We know what we're looking for."

"Go on."

"We were right all along, Wesley. It was the water. But not tap water - mineral water. Still Life Spring Water."

"Are you sure?"

"It all fits. There was a Still Life water cooler at Glendale - I remember walking past it. And Angel says he drank from a Still Life cooler at the hospital. That's the connection."

"Still Life," echoed Wesley.

"The Brethren are using the water to poison L.A.'s vamps. Find the Still Life Spring Water company and you've found them."

"Then we're close. Cordelia, I'm with Gunn. We're at Hawthorne Industrial estate. The Brethren nest is somewhere here."

There was a note of alarm in her voice. "Wesley, listen, you have to be careful. These Brethren vamps are bad news. The books say crosses won't frighten them; holy water and garlic might not do much good either. These vamps are the demonic marine corps."

"Well that's… useful to know." It was useful, insofar as 'useful' was a synonym for 'terrifying'. "Do the books give any indication of why that is?"

"One of them said something about 'time and trial'."

Time and trial. A suspicion began to form in Wesley's mind, and he felt suddenly cold. "What did Angel have to say about that?"

"Not much, apart from getting my name wrong. One minute he's here and the next it's like there's a little 'the vampire is out' sign up." She hesitated, then said with an almost imperceptible catch in her voice: "Wesley, he hasn't got long."

"Cordelia…" Wesley stopped, wanting to say something, anything to comfort her. He couldn't; he didn't have the words. The comforting lie, the blithe platitude: other people seemed to employ them with ease at the appropriate moment. Wesley, somehow, had never picked up the knack, and now he felt his inadequacy more than ever. Finally, he said, "Do your best. I know you will." It felt insufficient, but it was the best he could offer.

The pause before the response was even longer in coming, but when it did, her voice was steadier. "Thanks. Wesley, go kick Brethren ass and don't do anything stupid. I'd majorly prefer it if Angel Investigations still had more than one employee this time tomorrow."

That sounded more like Cordelia. Wesley smiled. "I find that scenario rather attractive myself. Cordelia, I'm going to turn my phone off now. I'd prefer not to risk sneaking up on an invulnerable vampire only to start ringing loudly."

"Okay." She sounded reluctant. "Call me when it's over. Good luck."

Wesley ended the call and switched off the cell-phone. He turned to Gunn. "Better round up your people. We're going to need a plan of attack."

* * *

Cordelia wasn't with Angel when he died.

*Do your best,* Wesley said before he hung up. *I know you will.* The words didn't matter: he had said it with such conviction she knew he believed it. Believed in her. Knowing that made it easier to be strong.

Making the final connection between the sickness, the Brethren and Still Life seemed to use up the last vestiges of Angel's strength. Afterwards, he slipped out of consciousness and lucidity with increasing frequency. As afternoon became early evening, Cordelia watched him deteriorate with inexorable, terrifying speed.

Often he mumbled quietly and unintelligibly, carrying on one-sided, nonsensical conversations with people who existed only in his head. Then, just as she was beginning to believe he wouldn't regain consciousness again, he woke up. Looking straight at Cordelia, he smiled, a radiant, joyful smile she had never seen on his face before. It lit his features, and for a moment all traces of the vampire vanished, and all she saw was a young man. "I'm glad you're here," he told her.

She wondered who he thought he was talking to: Buffy, most likely. "Yeah, I'm here. It's okay."

"I've missed you. I'm sorry I left… I didn't want to go."

Cordelia swallowed, not knowing how to respond, or even if it made a difference if she replied or not. At last she managed, "It's okay. I know."

"Sweet Kathleen," he whispered, still smiling. He shivered. "I'm cold."

"I'll get another blanket." She got up and went to her bedroom, where she found the last spare blanket pushed to the back of the closet shelf. She carried it back to the main room and began to unfold it over Angel. Half way through the action, she stopped.

He lay motionless on the couch, his bandaged hand resting on his unmoving chest. The faintest echo of the smile remained on his features, and his eyes were open. Open and empty. The soul which had lit them from within was gone.

The blanket slipped from Cordelia's fingers, and crumpled across her feet. She stood perfectly still for several long minutes. The tap in the kitchen dripped; the refrigerator hummed as it turned itself on and off; the clock above the door ticked softly, marking off the seconds that somehow kept passing. Outside the apartment, a car door slammed somewhere and a dog barked.

"Angel?"

There was a lump in her chest, a huge, cold lump that wanted to force its way up her throat and into her head. She could feel it, blocking up her insides, choking her. She felt her chest begin to ache with the pain of holding it in, and a sob escaped her.

Of course he was dead, the rational Cordelia, the one who could be relied upon to step in and take charge in a crisis, said firmly. *What, you thought there was some kind of magical get out of jail free card? You thought you had a divine right to a happy ending?*

Crisis-Cordelia made her stop crying, by forcing her knuckles into her mouth and biting down so hard all she could feel was the physical pain. Then Crisis-Cordelia knelt beside the couch and brushed the flat of her hand over Angel's face, closing his eyes. The worst over with, Crisis-Cordelia retreated back to wherever she went between times, and left just Cordelia, sitting on the floor beside Angel's body on the couch.

"Angel," she said at last. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud. "I don't know what happens to a soul after… well, after. I know Dennis stuck around, so I guess there must be something… anyhow, if you're listening… You can't do this to me. It's not fair. I'm not a good person. I'm selfish, and shallow, because all I can think about is how much losing you is going to hurt me, and how guilty I'm going to feel forever because of all the things I never really said. Like, how I was really scared and alone when I came to LA. And how grateful I was that there was someone to look out for me. I never said thank you, because I figured you knew, and now I'm not sure you did and I wish I'd said something and this isn't fair because you were supposed to live forever, you were never going to leave me alone and…" She broke off, aware she was very close to curling up and sobbing on the floor.

She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rocked back and forth, trying to think what to do next. The half-folded blanket slowly lifted itself off the floor and unfurled itself until it covered Angel completely. Dennis, helping.

After a moment, Cordelia got up and went to the kitchen. She lifted the phone and tried Wesley first, but got only a recorded message telling her his cell was currently unavailable. Next she rang several numbers in Sunnydale, and found them all still disconnected. This done, she put the phone down, all out of options. There wasn't anyone else who could tell her what to do next. There wasn't even anyone else who cared.

"There's a get out of jail free card," she said aloud, apropos of nothing. "There's always a get out of jail free card."

She filled the kettle and switched it on, spooned instant coffee granules into a cup and waited for the water to boil. She didn't want coffee, but lifting, pouring and stirring kept her hands busy and her mind occupied.

The television in the corner of the kitchen turned itself on. Cordelia lifted the remote and killed it. "Not now, Dennis."

*There's always an escape clause.*

The television came on again. "I said no already!" Angrily, she reached over the breakfast bar to pull out the TV's power cable at the wall. Her hand gripped the plug, and froze.

She stared at the screen. The station ident in the corner of the picture told her she was watching the Channel 5 evening news. In the picture, a pretty, anodyne reporter stood outside one of LA's theatres and chatted glibly about whatever event she was covering. Cordelia wasn't listening. She was looking at the guests filing past the camera behind the reporter. At one of the guests in particular.

Favard. The vampire Favard. Alive, so to speak, and well.

Cordelia set down the coffee cup and went back to the living room. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted away the blanket which had become Angel's shroud. She examined his corpse.

He was cold - but he was always cold. He wasn't breathing, but then, he didn't have to do that either. How did you kill a vampire? Stakes, sunlight, fire, beheading. Anything else was nothing more than an inconvenience.

"Get out of jail free," she whispered, and stood up.

She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, before examining herself critically in the mirror. Her lipstick had rubbed off and her mascara was running. She used the corner of a tissue to wipe the excess from under her eyes.

"Cordelia Chase gets what she wants," she told the mirror. The reflection regarded her with a mixture of uncertainty and fear, so she repeated it, over and over, like a mantra. When at last the face in the mirror appeared half-way convinced, Cordelia nodded, satisfied, and left.

In the kitchen, she lifted the lid off the trash and began to search through it. Lindsey McDonald's business card was near the top of the garbage, and she found it without difficulty. The card was stamped with Wolfram and Hart's logo, and Lindsey's email address and direct line were printed clearly just beneath his name.

The phone rang eight times before he answered. "Hello?"

"Hello, Lindsey."

"Cordelia, it's good to hear from you. I guess you tuned in after all."

"How did you do it, Lindsey? What's the cure?"

At the other end of the line, she heard him chuckle. "You'd be surprised how many problems go away if you just throw enough money at them."

She took a deep breath. "I have something you want."

He stopped laughing. "I really doubt that."

"Come on, Lindsey. You didn't leave me your card for nothing. If you want to cut a deal, here I am. Let's cut."

"You know, the junior partners here have a standing arrangement to go out for dinner when Angel… ceases to be an obstruction." Lindsey spoke slowly, and she could tell he was choosing his words carefully. "So if you're asking for what I think you're asking for, this had better be one hell of a pitch, Cordelia."

"Don't worry," she told him. "It is."

**14: Unholy Alliance**

Not all Hawthorne Business Park's units were obviously numbered, and locating lot 318 proved to be more time consuming than Kate had anticipated. Eventually, more out of luck than planning, she stumbled across a door marked 325 and was able to work backwards until by a process of logical deduction she found it.

The warehouse appeared just as empty as its neighbours. Kate stopped the car and got out. Opening the trunk, she took out her newly-acquired crossbow and a supply of spare bolts. For good measure, she slipped into her pockets several of what she thought of as her grenades - kids' water bombs filled with Holy Water. Walking around the outside of the warehouse in the evening sun holding the bow and with bulging pockets, she felt foolish, but safer.

She walked past a succession of blacked-out windows before finding the warehouse's back entrance. The lock appeared to have been recently forced, and the door stood slightly ajar. She held the crossbow up in a ready-stance, and wished that the damn thing was as small and light as her sidearm. Then she pushed open the door and slipped in.

It was hot inside - a whole day of sunshine baking the unit's metal roof had seen to that. There was a faint, unpleasantly fetid smell in the air. Kate swung the bow around in a wide arc, searching for any signs of movement and waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. She saw nothing, and after a moment she moved away from the door.

She checked several storerooms, finding nothing more incriminating than empty boxes and shreds of packing plastic. She saw nothing to indicate any kind of business being carried on, and she was just beginning to think she was in the wrong place after all when one of the empty boxes she tried to kick aside turned out to be full.

Kate stifled an exclamation and bent down to examine the box. She ripped off the tape sealing down the lid and opened it. She lifted out one of the objects inside and squinted at it in the gloom.

It was a bottle of mineral water. Still Life Spring Water.

Kate blinked, and replaced the bottle in the box. She stood up and began to make a quick but thorough search of the room. A stack of boxes by the far wall contained supermarket own-brand water, and there was a thick sheaf of printed Still Life labels sitting on top of the table by the door, awaiting application. She found an opaque, unmarked bottle which, when she uncorked it and sniffed quickly across the neck, smelt strongly of chemicals. The room was also well-stocked with a number of items whose significance escaped her - chalk, candles, and a large selection of what seemed to be dried herbs. Well, she could worry about those in the morning, when she came back with a search warrant.

Kate knew her understanding of magic was limited, but she recognised a scam when she saw one. And, if the bottle she had lifted contained silver nitrate, as she was confident it did, a potentially lethal scam at that.

She heard a noise outside the room and flattened herself against the inside wall. The come-back-in-the-morning plan, she reminded herself grimly, depended to a large extent on making it to sunrise alive.

The noise resolved itself into two whispering voices, whose owners came to a stop directly outside the storeroom. Kate waited, hoping they would decide to move on.

The door began to open.

If there were two of them, Kate knew at close quarters she wouldn't have time to fire the crossbow at the first and reload it before the second attacked her. But she didn't need to kill them. She just needed to get outside, into the evening sunlight.

She dropped the bow as the first vampire came through the door. Reaching both hands into her jacket pockets simultaneously, she pulled out the water bombs and threw them. Then she dived for the door, pushing the nearest vampire away from her as she went, and running past the other as the water hit him in the face.

She was halfway out of the room when the vamp nearest the door grabbed her and pulled her back in. He didn't seem to be in pain. In fact, he didn't seem to be anything more serious than mildly perturbed.

"I'm all wet," he said peevishly, in an English accent.

Kate stared. "Wesley?"

"Detective Lockley?"

The other man, an African-American teen, picked himself up off the floor. "'Detective'? Oh, terrific. Supervamps and now the LAPD. Isn't my night improving by leaps."

* * *

"…So we believe that the Brethren are here in L.A, and that they are intent on wiping out the city's indigenous vampire population, then moving in and taking over." Wesley concluded his explanation by taking off his glasses and polishing them with a small cloth. He was sitting on an empty crate in the storeroom while opposite him Kate kept the only entrance covered with the crossbow. Gunn had gone to scout the route back out of the building, giving Wesley a few minutes to brief Kate.

Dryly, she said, "Sounds like a worthwhile endeavour to me. They should have applied for a small business loan."

Wesley looked at her, trying to decide if she was being serious. "They're using the human population as a vector to achieve their goals. People are dying. Children are…"

She held up a hand. "Relax, Wesley. I'm not gonna weep for any dead vampires, but I'm not advocating poisoning little kids either. We'll shut this down."

"Well, good. Because the Brethren are a much more fearsome proposition than the common or garden vampire."

"Yay," said Kate faintly. She switched the crossbow from her right hand to her left, and stretched the free arm, wincing. "Well, this just rocks. This morning I had a vampire throwing up in the back of my car, and this evening I'm holed up inside a vampire nest. There was a time when demons didn't feature quite so prominently in my routine." She looked at Wesley and smiled thinly.

Wesley said, "Angel is very sick."

The smile vanished, and her eyes flicked away from Wesley and back to the door. "Did I ask how he was? I don't think so."

"I know you didn't. I'm telling you. Kate, whatever you say, you helped him this morning. That makes me think…"

"Well it shouldn't," she interrupted sharply. "I wouldn't leave a dog to die in the street. And I already told you, I'm not going to cry for any dead vampires."

The door began to open. Wesley picked up his stake and took up a position in the shadows next to it, while Kate transferred the bow back to her right hand. They both relaxed when Gunn entered. "All clear. I think we managed not disturb anyone's beauty sleep. I found the steps to the basement - that's probably where they are."

Wesley checked his watch. Encountering Kate meant that they had spent much longer reconnoitring the warehouse than they had intended. "It's almost dusk. The nest will be waking up soon. We need to get out of here."

"And get back up," said Kate.

Gunn grinned. "We got back up. My people."

"Your people? You have people?" Kate looked at Wesley, apparently unconvinced. "He has people?"

"He has people," said Wesley. "Exceptionally well armed people."

As if in confirmation, Gunn's radio crackled. He unclipped it from his belt and raised it. "This is Crossbearer."

It was Cloud. "Gunn, are you okay? You've been in there way too long. We're getting worried out here."

"It's okay, Cloud, we're on our way out."

"There's an LAPD car parked four units down. It wasn't there earlier."

"Yeah, I know about it." Gunn glanced towards Kate: "It's cool. Meet me at the back entrance in three minutes. If we're not there, come in."

"Check. Dustbuster out." Gunn turned off the radio, then turned to Wesley and Kate. "Let's go get ourselves some safety in numbers."

Kate nodded. "Works for me."

Quietly, they retraced their route into the warehouse, Gunn leading, Kate following, and Wesley bringing up the rear. The building was perfectly still, the only sound the occasional scrabble of birds landing on the outside of the roof above. It wasn't long before they had reached the main storage area, a large, airy space stacked high with crates and boxes. Wesley could see the door they had forced standing open ahead of them. He began to relax, and checked behind them one last time.

The tattooed vampire following them snarled.

"Hello," said Wesley. A second vampire, its heavily-ridged face also marked with an intricate tattooed design, stepped out of the shadows. "And you've got a friend. How nice."

Wesley took a step backwards so that he formed one side of a tight triangle. To his right, Kate raised her bow. On his left, Gunn said, "How many? I see two."

"Two here," said Wesley.

"And here."

In his peripheral vision, Wesley saw Gunn pull a wooden cross from his pocket and hold it up. The vampire nearest to him growled deeper, but did not retreat or look away. Wesley's earlier suspicion hardened to certainty. Kate swung her crossbow slowly from side to side, trying to achieve the widest possible angle of coverage. "I can take out two of them."

"Basic maths would suggest that still leaves four," said Wesley. "We'd still be outnumbered."

Gunn said, "Not for much longer."

There was a crashing sound so loud that for a moment Wesley thought a bomb had gone off somewhere nearby. He looked around to find he wasn't far from the truth. The warehouse's loading bay doors hung off their hinges, and the last of the sun's rays silhouetted the heavily armed truck bursting through them. Wesley saw Cloud leap down from one side and Theo from the other, each followed by a stream of stake-wielding teens.

Gunn yelled something that sounded to Wesley suspiciously like 'Wooo-hooo!' and launched himself at the vampire closest to him.

Wesley heard a snarl from behind him and turned just in time to see one of the other Brethren vampires bearing down on him. He tried to side-step it, wasn't fast enough, and reeled as it tackled him to the floor. Now it was on top of him, its demonic face exultant. Wesley tried to push it off him and thought he was succeeding, until he realised the vampire was simply raising itself in preparation for the killing bite.

There was a whistle, and a thunk. The vampire looked at the crossbow bolt sticking out of its chest with mild surprise, then crumbled, showering Wesley with black ash and revealing Kate running towards him. He scrambled to his feet, coughing vampire out of his lungs. In a second, she stood beside him, reloading.

"I think I'm finally getting the hang of this thing," she said.

"Over there," said Wesley.

On the far side of the warehouse, Gunn, Cloud and Theo were struggling with another vampire. While the two men held it at bay, Wesley saw Cloud take a bottle from her belt and throw the contents over the vamp. He heard the demon hiss and its skin sizzle, but the Holy Water barely slowed it down. It lashed out, knocking Theo to one side and leaving Gunn and Cloud fighting from a weakened position. They were in trouble.

Kate raised her bow, and tried without success to aim it across the melee. "I can't get a line. Come on."

She pitched into the mayhem, and Wesley followed her, weaving to avoid flying stakes and stray kicks. By the time they reached the other side of the fight, Cloud was lying still on the floor and Gunn was holding his own with increasing desperation.

Kate dropped the bow and launched herself at the vampire, taking hold of its arm and slamming it against the wall. "Hold it!" she screamed. "Somebody hold it down!"

Gunn grabbed the vampire's other side, and together they succeeded in pinning it in position. The vampire struggled hard against them, and from their faces Wesley knew he had at best a few seconds. Cloud's stake lay on the floor at his feet, where she had dropped it. He picked it up.

Kate yelled, "Now! Do it now!"

Wesley pushed the stake into the vampire's chest, burying it in the hard flesh. Gunn and Kate, braced against its weight, almost collapsed as the source of the resistance exploded into flaky nothingness.

With the immediate threat gone, Wesley looked back across the warehouse floor to assess how the rest of Gunn's gang were faring. What he saw was not heartening. The four remaining Brethren vampires were more than holding their own, despite the gang's supremacy in numbers. Wesley counted at least four bodies, two of which looked more than unconscious. As he watched, a vampire knocked a sixteen or seventeen year old boy backwards into a pile of crates as if he were simply an irritation. The boy slid to the floor and stayed there.

"Shit," said Gunn. "This is not…"

A flash of movement caught Wesley's attention. He identified it just too late. "Kate - watch out -"

The vampire that had broken away from its attackers slammed into Kate, immobilising her. Gunn reached her first, and grabbed the demon just as it was baring its teeth over her exposed neck. Wesley was beside him in a second, but their joint effort was not enough to pull it off her. With a sudden, sickening sense of dread, Wesley realised the Brethren were winning.

He heard a dull pop from behind him, and the temperature dropped suddenly.

Kate was screaming, kicking the vampire on top of her and swearing at it in blind fury.

The vampire was ready to make the kill.

And then it was gone, leaving only the sharp end of a wooden spear hanging in the air where its heart had been.

With nothing to counterbalance him, Wesley almost fell backwards. He turned around to see who had come to their rescue.

From her position on the floor, Kate had already seen it. "What the *hell* is that-?"

The thing holding the spear was half as tall again as a man, and twice as wide. To describe it as holding the weapon was not wholly accurate, because as far as Wesley could see it had no arms, hands or for that matter any other recognisable appendage. Its form consisted of billowing, roiling clouds of oily blackness, shifting and solidifying as the need arose. Only its eyes, shining dully like red coals in the rippling mass positioned approximately where a head should have been, seemed to have any substance. The eyes glared at Wesley with malevolence. He stared, sure of what he saw but hardly able to believe it was real.

Someone had summoned the Principalities.

As Wesley watched, three more Principalities coalesced into existence and began to attack the Brethren vampires. At first terrified, then confused, Gunn's gang fell back and allowed the duels to play out unimpeded. One by one, the remaining three vampires exploded into showers of dust. As the final vampire shattered and disappeared, so too did the Principalities, each one imploding into a tiny, dense black sphere which hung in the air for a moment, then vanished.

There was a silence. Even Gunn appeared phased. Then he shook his head, and raised his voice so that he could be heard across the warehouse. "Hey! What are you standing about for? We've got wounded!"

He didn't need to say more. While Gunn went to Cloud's side - Wesley noted with relief that she seemed to be coming round - the rest of the gang began to help the injured towards to truck, still sitting in the wreckage of the warehouse bay doors. Wesley offered Kate his hand and pulled her to her feet.

She was still staring at the empty space where the Principality had been as she got up. "What… What in hell was that?"

"In hell, that was very powerful indeed."

"What was it?"

"It was a Principality," said Wesley. "I think. I've read about them, and I know it's possible to summon and bind them for short periods, but I've never heard of it being done. Well, not successfully."

Kate stared. "Someone… called those things? To fight for us?"

Wesley couldn't think of another explanation. "It appears so."

"Was it you?"

"God, no, I wouldn't know where to…" He shook his head. "It's dark magic. Very powerful. Not the sort of thing you mess with unless you know exactly what you're doing."

"Then who?"

"I don't know."

Cloud was on her feet, and Gunn supported her as they joined Wesley and Kate. "But they're gone, right? Back to the hot place."

"Apparently."

Gunn shrugged. "Then they're not our problem any more. Hey, Chain! Help Cloud to the truck."

Another boy appeared at Gunn's side and slipped Cloud's arm around his shoulder and his arm around her waist.

"She needs hospital treatment," said Kate.

Gunn looked at her. "We don't exactly have a medical plan. She'll be looked after. Hey, you're pretty handy with a crossbow."

Kate smiled faintly. "You're pretty handy with a stake. Look, in about two minutes I'm going to remember I'm a cop, so…"

Gunn held up a hand. "I hear ya." He waved at the remaining members of his gang. "People, we're moving out. Load up and let's roll."

Wesley watched Gunn hop into the back of the truck, waving in their direction as the engine started and the vehicle reversed over the debris and back into the night. When the engine noise had faded, he was alone with Kate in the warehouse.

After a moment's silence, Kate said, "I'll be back first thing in the morning in my official capacity. This time tomorrow there won't be a bottle of Still Life water left in LA." She frowned. "Okay, here's the part I don't get. These Brethren things were poisoning their own food source as well as everyone else's. How could they be sure of not feeding off people who'd drunk contaminated water?"

"They couldn't, but it didn't matter. The annals say that the Brethren built up their strength through 'time and trial'. I wasn't certain until I saw them for myself, but those vampires were old. They may in fact have been the original founders of the sect. They've had a long time to cultivate their immunities." Wesley shrugged, finally acknowledging the dull spreading hopelessness he had been fighting to subdue. "Vampires operate to a different timescale than mortals. The Brethren may have spent most of the past two or three centuries exposing themselves to tiny amounts of the substances they used to create the poison. Which means there's no cure, because they never needed one."

Kate exhaled slowly. "We might not be able to do anything more for the kids who are already sick, but at least we know this stops here."

Quietly, Wesley said, "Kate. Angel is…"

"Not my concern. See you round, Wesley." She picked up her crossbow and walked out into the night, not looking back.

When she had gone, Wesley pulled out his cell-phone and switched it back on. He speed-dialled Cordelia's apartment and waited for her to answer.

"Hi, this is Cordelia. I'm having way too much fun to talk to you right now, so you'll have to leave a message." *Beep.*

"Cordelia, it's me. If you're there, pick up the phone."

"Wesley?"

He stared at the phone, trying to figure out why her voice was so much clearer than it should have been.

"Wesley, over here." She was standing behind him, looking pale and preoccupied. She stepped over a broken crate and surveyed the wreckage of the fight. "Are you okay?"

He let the hand holding the phone to fall to his side. "Yes. Cordelia, what are you doing here? Is Angel…"

"Angel's going to be okay. He's getting treatment."

Wesley looked at her, not understanding. "Treatment? From whom? And where?"

Cordelia held up her hands in a slow-down gesture. "He's at a clinic outside the city. We came to get you."

"We? Who are you…" The question hung in the air, as Wesley saw the answer step out of the car parked outside and enter the warehouse. Lindsey. Wesley turned to Cordelia, and saw in her guilty expression all the confirmation he needed. "What have you done?"

"Saved your ass," said Lindsey, obviously relishing the moment. "I hope you appreciated the Principalities because I gotta tell you, summoning them at short notice is a bitch."

Cordelia said, "Wesley, I'll explain on the way. But we need to go now."

He hesitated, then turned off the cell-phone and followed Cordelia back to Lindsey's car.

**15: Blood and Water**

For a long time there was nothing. No sensation, no self, no dreams, no memory… Nothing. Just the awareness of being, of continuing, suspended and apart. There was a feeling of dislocation, neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Then there was something.

At first he thought it was the echo of a memory, and he recoiled from it, because he didn't want to remember. But instead of fading it persisted, and grew. Words which had almost ceased to have meaning suddenly became relevant again: cold, sharp, pain. Soon there were more words, to locate the sensations. Hands, feet, fingers, toes.

Next there was consciousness, initially dull and hazy around the edges, but swiftly becoming focused, acute. Impulses became thoughts, and soon he found he could frame thoughts in language.

Finally there was self-awareness, and with it came identity.

Angel woke up.

"I think he's coming round."

Wesley, somewhere close by. Angel tried to respond, but although he could feel his mouth forming words, he couldn't force out the sounds.

From his other side, he heard Cordelia's voice say, "Angel? Wesley, is he trying to say something?"

Breath. He didn't need to breathe to live, but he needed to inhale to speak. Right now, it felt like too much effort.

"I believe he is. He's probably still very weak. Just a moment, and I'll…"

Wesley's voice trailed off, and Angel heard the sound of chair legs scraping over a hard floor as he got up.

Then: "Wesley, what the *hell* are you-"

Angel didn't hear the end of Cordelia's exclamation - her words were drowned out by his sudden, spontaneous gasp as something hit his chest, hard.

"Jeez, Wesley, wasn't he dead enough for you?"

"Don't worry, I've seen it done before. Stimulates the breathing reflex."

"You've *seen* it done? On what, crash test dummies?"

There was something oddly reassuring about the bickering flying back and forth overhead. If Angel had had the strength, he would have smiled. As it was, he made himself breathe in and out again. "…Worked."

Above him, Cordelia broke off in the middle of remonstrating with Wesley. "Angel! Welcome back to the world of the living. Walking undead. Oh, whatever - welcome back."

Slowly, he blinked, and opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, and he could make out nothing more than two shadowy forms sitting by his side. He was no longer on the couch in the lounge, but the place he was instead seemed larger somehow than either of the apartment's bedrooms.

"…Brethren?" he asked.

"We whipped their asses *good,*" said Cordelia with satisfaction. "Wesley totally rocked."

Somehow, Wesley managed to sound simultaneously modest and extremely gratified by the praise. "It is true I did a little slaying of my own. Just as well I stopped being a Watcher, really. I feel I'm much more a man of action these days."

Angel blinked again; his vision was clearing, and the fuzzy shapes next to him were slowly resolving themselves into the faces of Wesley and Cordelia. The room beyond the bed remained unfamiliar. "How long?"

Cordelia said, "You were dead for about eight hours. Dead as in not-responding-to-stimuli dead, as opposed to your more normal walking-around-talking dead."

The pins and needles pains in his arms and legs were beginning to recede, and as an experiment Angel attempted to move his arms. His left side responded without difficulty, but something impeded his right arm. He managed to turn his head far enough to focus on the source of the obstruction, and saw two slim tubes snaking out of his flesh and draining into some kind of medical equipment positioned on a table beside the bed. Each tube ran dark with blood. His blood. "…Cure?"

"Not exactly," Wesley told him. "From the materials we found at the Brethren nest, it appears that Still Life Spring Water is quite a cocktail. There was silver nitrate, of course: there were also essential oils of garlic, tiny quantities of Holy Water and a rather ingenious curse to bind the whole lot together. There were so many different elements to it, effecting a cure for each one separately would have been nearly impossible."

"Then how?"

There was a short silence, and Angel got the impression neither of them was eager to answer his question. He still couldn't tell where he was, but he was certain it wasn't Cordelia's apartment. Something wasn't right.

At last Cordelia said, "A full blood transfusion."

That made no sense. "But it would have to be…"

"From an uninfected vampire," finished Wesley. "Yes. It was."

"Where…" His sight had almost returned now; Angel saw that the room he was in was large, with plain white walls and a glass-panelled door leading to a brightly lit hallway. "This can't be a hospital."

The silence this time was even longer. "You're in John Seward Memorial Clinic, just outside the city," Cordelia told him finally. "Angel, just try to sleep now, okay? I'll explain everything later on."

There was a quality in her voice - something unsure, anxious - which was not the Cordelia he knew. "No. Now."

The door to the corridor opened, flooding the room with a wide shaft of artificial light. "Oh, good. The patient is awake. I didn't think I was going to get the chance to give you my best wishes in person." Lindsey smiled warmly, and held up the bottle he was holding in his left hand. "The doctors tell me it's important you get re-hydrated, so I brought you water. Evian, not one of those cheap brands. Who knows what they put in those, right?"

Angel stared at Lindsey, then at Wesley and Cordelia. "What is this?" Wesley's expression was studiedly neutral. Cordelia wouldn't meet his eye.

Lindsey deposited the water on the bedside locker, and tapped one of the suspended bags of dark, oleaginous blood suspended above the bed. "John Seward is the only clinic in L.A that keeps *all* the blood types on hand. Most of Wolfram and Hart's clients come here. They treat staff, too. Those of us who are in the medical scheme, anyway." He held up his hooked right arm, and smiled. "Well, I can see you three have plenty to talk about, so I'll leave you to it. And Angel - I just want you to know what a terrific girl you've got in Cordelia here. Someone with her negotiating skills is a loss to the legal profession."

He left, the door swinging shut behind him. Cordelia was still looking at the floor. With a sickening sense of conviction, Angel understood. "You made a deal."

"We made a deal," corrected Wesley. "You were, to all intents and purposes, dead and there was…"

"Wesley had nothing to do with it," interrupted Cordelia with a measure of her customary defiance, looking up again. "It was me. I saw Favard, Angel. He was cured. You were dead, or dead-er."

Which was, thought Angel, exactly how Wolfram and Hart wanted him. He tried to think what Cordelia could have offered in return for his treatment, and didn't like any of the options. "Tell me what you gave them. Exactly what you gave them."

"Information." Cordelia spoke quietly. "I figured the Brethren were as big a problem for Wolfram and Hart as everybody else, what with trying to kill off their client base. And religious cults don't generally need a lot of legal services. So I gave Lindsey the chance to earn some merit points by getting rid of the Big Bad. In return, treatment for you and the kids from Glendale."

Angel's head hurt. He tried to raise his hand to massage his temple, but he had forgotten the tubes and needles restricting his movement, binding him to the equipment beside the bed and the supply of new blood restoring him. "You don't condemn evil than trade with it to get what you want. That puts us on the same level as Lindsey."

Wesley said, "Angel, as much as I am loath to admit it, we weren't doing more than holding our own against the Brethren until Wolfram and Hart's forces joined the fray. Lauren and the other sick children have been moved here from St Matthew's: they're receiving transfusions as well, and they're responding. All in all, perhaps this has worked out for the best."

Cordelia swallowed. "There's more. I gave them something else. I gave them the scroll."

Wesley was aghast. "Cordelia, what were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking? I'll tell you what I was thinking." Cordelia's voice began to rise. "I was thinking Angel was dead and you were somewhere busy getting killed by super-vampires. I was scared and I was alone and I did the only thing I could, so you can both just come down off that moral high ground for long enough to start being grateful."

On the last word, her voice cracked. She stood up and left the room, pushing her chair backwards so quickly she knocked it over. It fell, clattering on to the linoleum floor just as the door slammed behind Cordelia.

"Oh dear," said Wesley quietly. "Angel, I think I ought to…"

Angel shut his eyes. "Yeah. Go."

He heard Wesley's footsteps as he crossed the room, then heard the door open. Seconds passed, and he sensed he had not gone. At last Wesley said, "Don't judge her too severely. Her intentions were good."

"Would you have done it?"

Angel waited for Wesley's response, and waited, and when he eventually opened his eyes, the door was closed and the room empty. Wesley had gone.

 

* * *

 

The clinic had a small cafeteria on the ground floor, but at this time of night it was closed and empty. It suited Cordelia's mood perfectly. She sat at a plastic moulded table in one corner of the dim restaurant, tracing abstract patterns with her fingertips in the pile of salt left over from some previous diner's over-enthusiastic and poorly aimed attempt at seasoning his food.

"Cup of tea?"

Cordelia looked up, blinking and swallowing. She wouldn't cry. Not in front of anyone else.

Wesley set a steaming plastic cup in front of her, then sat down opposite, taking a sip from his own as he did so. "Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

She stared at him. "What?"

He gave a hesitant smile. "I'm reverting to type. At times of emotional crisis, we British make tea and talk about the weather."

She almost smiled back. "I thought that was a cliché."

"Oh, it is. But it works. Especially if the crisis is a storm threatening the global tea crop."

"Thanks for sticking up for me."

"I meant it. The Brethren vampires were old. And powerful. Their numbers may have been small, but it took all our massed forces to overcome them." He sipped his drink again. "You should have been there - it was quite the occasion. For ten minutes, Gunn's gang, Wolfram and Hart, the LAPD and yours truly were all fighting on the same side."

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. "Suddenly I feel all warm and glowy inside." She hesitated. "So I did the right thing?"

Wesley said nothing for a long time. At last he said quietly, "In the same situation, I don't think I would have taken that course."

He sounded, she thought, disappointed. It was almost unbearable. "So you don't think I did."

Wesley shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "They have the prophecy scroll. Yes, we know the contents in their entirety, but… in magic, sometimes the tangible receptacles of knowledge take on a certain power of their own. And now they have control over that power again."

"Angel died," said Cordelia. "He wasn't just really sick, Wesley. He died in front of me. It was like a light behind his eyes went out."

"Cordelia…" Wesley was looking at her; he seemed to be regarding her differently, but she couldn't pinpoint how exactly. "It must have been…"

"I'm not after the sympathy vote. The point is, we didn't win this one, but we didn't lose it either. Lauren and the other kids are recovering. No one else will get sick. Angel's going to be okay. And we saved a lot of evil blood-sucking vampires from being poisoned." She frowned to herself. "Okay, forget that last one. But the rest stands. Especially about Angel."

Wesley smiled for a moment, then his expression grew serious. "I'm not sure Angel sees it like that."

Exasperated, she said, "Well why not?"

"Angel, perhaps due to his… unique situation, has a strong sense of moral debt. Because of what you did, he feels he owes Wolfram and Hart his continued existence. That is not a good thing. But…" He glanced down at the table top, then up again, meeting her gaze. "I'll be honest. I wouldn't have done what you did. But if the choice had been mine, I don't think my decision would necessarily have been a better one. I'm sorry I can't say anything more helpful."

She rested her hand lightly over his. "It's okay. You have helped. Wesley, I don't want to have gone through all that to save a friend, just to lose him."

Wesley placed his other hand over hers, covering it. "Perhaps you should tell Angel that."

 

* * *

 

Angel woke up with the feeling he was being watched.

He pulled himself up the bed, finding it easier now that someone had removed most of the tubes and needles from his arm. The same someone had left the door to his room in the clinic open. A small girl stood against the doorframe, wearing a pink bathrobe and a pair of slippers in the shape of rabbits. She was appraising him gravely. "Are you my guardian angel?"

He looked at her. "Do you need one?"

"Lauren? Oh, there you are." A woman, obviously the girl's mother, appeared and scooped her daughter up into her arms. "Honey, don't annoy the nice man."

"It's okay. She wasn't."

Lauren looked at her mother. "Is he my angel?"

"Angels have wings, sweetheart." The woman smiled apologetically. "She's been asking everybody that the last couple of days. C'mon, let's go back to Daddy, Lauren." Still smiling, she disappeared back down the hallway, carrying the girl.

Alone, Angel looked around the clinic room. Although still bare and functional, several touches of familiarity had been added while he slept. A set of his clothes sat neatly folded on one of the chairs, and a vase of summer flowers had appeared on the table in the corner.

There was a card on the bedside locker. The front showed a cartoon of a man in traction, with the words 'For a V.I.P.' printed above. Angel lifted the card and opened it. The second half of the message had been altered in black marker from 'Very Important Patient' to 'Vampire in Pain'. The handwriting was Cordelia's.

"That was Wesley's idea." He looked over the card and saw her standing inside the door, carrying a shoulder bag. "You know that famous zany English sense of humour." She came in, pulled up a chair and sat down. "You look better today. You're less with the blotches." She raised her hands to her face and waggled the fingers over her skin for emphasis.

"I feel better."

"Good. I mean, that's… good." She nodded, and they sat in awkward silence while the seconds stretched. Finally, Cordelia said: "Come on, Angel. I've been waiting for you to wake up again for two days so we can have this conversation. I don't do the subtlety thing. Honesty and tact, remember? Give it to me straight."

He set the card back on the bedside locker. "You shouldn't have done it."

She nodded, and he got the impression she had been steeling herself for this. "I know the scroll's important, but it was the only bargaining chip I had and-"

Interrupting, he said, "It's not the scroll. I stole it, they took it back. Whatever. It's me. You made the deal for me, and you shouldn't have. I'm not a person, Cordelia. I'm a demon wearing a dead man's flesh."

Suddenly angry, she said, "And that means you're not worth saving?"

"It means I'm not worth you risking your soul over."

"No," said Cordelia simply.

He looked at her, not following. "No, what?"

"No, it doesn't work like that. Maybe you've been out of the loop of non-dysfunctional relationships for too long. Let me explain. When you start caring about people, they start caring back. If you take risks and make sacrifices for other people, they'll start doing the same for you. They'll help you when you don't want help, because they won't be able to stop themselves. I'm not going to say sorry, Angel. I'd do it again in a second."

"And you'd still be wrong."

"Yeah," said Cordelia. "Wrong for bargaining with Lindsey the devil's advocate, and selfish for doing it because I couldn't cope with losing you. But you know what? It's done. So deal with it or fire me. I've started over once, and I can do it again."

There was a look of determination on her face that was half defiance, half fear. Angel realised Cordelia wasn't making an idle threat, that her pride would not allow her to back down now the words were out.

Slowly, he said, "People in non-dysfunctional relationships sometimes agree to disagree. I read that somewhere."

Something in her expression softened with relief. "I read that somewhere too. Cosmo, I think. So… we're okay? And I still have a job?"

"We're okay."

She smiled. "Good. Then I can go on my date tonight knowing I don't have to hit the Situations Vacant ads tomorrow."

Angel looked at her. "Your date?"

"Todd called. He said he was totally sorry he bailed on me, and he wants to make it up. He didn't even mention the whole staking incident. Isn't selective memory a wonderful thing?" She stood up and lifted her bag on to the edge of the bed. Angel watched as she began to pull an odd assortment of coloured cards and swatches of cloth from it. "Now, other important stuff. I called the insurance company this morning, and it looks like they're finally going to pay up for the office. Which means we have some serious decisions to make about colour schemes. I think we need something more vibrant. Nothing says 'We help the hopeless' like aqua-marine and citrus yellow."

Samples tumbled on to the bedspread and Angel realised with a sinking feeling that he was a captive audience. "Citrus yellow?"

"And a mirror in the front office would make it look larger. You can be careful where you stand when we have company, right?" Cordelia closed the bag and shouldered it. "I gotta run. Wesley'll call by later. Don't let him choose any of the florals." She turned to go.

"Cordelia, wait."

She stopped, and looked back at him, smiling and looking suddenly older than her nineteen years. Nineteen, Angel thought. Cordelia and Buffy were in many ways polar opposites, but one of the traits they did share, as well as their age, was an ability to call on deep internal reservoirs of determination and maturity when it counted, making it all too easy to forget their youth. At nineteen, Angel knew, the man he had been had lacked any concept of what it meant to take responsibility for his actions, to be an adult.

"I did know," he said at last. "And I was grateful to have someone to watch out for."

She looked at him. "I said those things when you were…"

"I heard. It was as if you were a long way off, but I heard."

Cordelia considered this for a moment, then nodded. "Don't ever scare me like that again," she said, and left.

**Epilogue: Family Ties**

"Lindsey. Have you seen the Times this morning?"

Lindsey looked up from the case notes he was reading. Holland stood in the door of his office, holding up a newspaper and smiling broadly. "Not yet. Something I should know about?"

"Oh, I think so." Holland crossed the office and opened the paper to the middle section. He tapped one of the articles with his finger. The headline read, City Law Firm All Hart.

"'LA law firm Wolfram and Hart proved yesterday that not all legal eagles are the heartless predators of public stereotype. The firm has offered to pay for treatment for the five children from Glendale Grammar School taken ill after drinking mineral water tainted with silver nitrate. A spokesman for the firm said, 'Many of us have families of our own, and we felt strongly it was right to step in.''"

Holland stopped reading, and smiled warmly. "'Families of our own.' That was a nice touch, Lindsey."

"Thank you. I figured it was time we got some good publicity."

Holland nodded approvingly. "Lindsey, I knew you had the potential to go places with this firm. I may have underestimated just how far."

"I just happened to be there when the opportunity arose." Lindsey leaned back in his chair. "Mind if I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"Why did we treat Angel and discharge him? Because, as perfectly as this turned out, I can't help thinking it could have been that little bit more perfect."

Holland folded over the newspaper and sat down in the chair on the far side of the desk. "You know, I love to hear that. The enthusiasm of youth. Yes, we could have taken care of the other little problem too. You've got the killer instinct, Lindsey. But you've still got a lot to learn about business."

Lindsey leaned forward. "I'm listening."

"It's about long term strategy," said Holland. "It's about confusing your opponents. Just when they think they know what to expect from you, throw them a curve ball. Angel is walking about out there now because we let him live. He knows it. That makes us stronger and him weaker."

"He'd be weaker still if he were dust."

"Strategy, Lindsey. I was at a meeting with the senior partners this morning about just this issue. And I can assure you, by the time we're finished with Angel, he'll wish we'd been merciful enough to stake him when he couldn't fight back. And so will everybody else."

Lindsey guessed what Holland was talking about. "How is she?"

Conspiratorially, Holland said, "She's a vicious, smart killer and she knows the true nature of the demon inside our angel. Another seven or eight weeks to regain her strength and she'll be ready." He smiled. "I have to tell you, Lindsey: I'm looking forward to this. It's going to be fun."

Lindsey smiled, and relaxed. "Roll on Fall."


End file.
